I worked as a web dev for 9 years and wrote my first website for money when I was 16. Yesterday, I came for a job interview and was called "a useless lamer" by unshaved, hoodie wearing CTO after a long argument about whether jQuery is obsolete.
I finished last contract in April, and didn't manage to get a new one since then. Before, I thought that skill obsolescence is just an excuse to fire old, unproductive people, now it became my own issue. There were years when I was getting multiple calls from recruiters in single day,but I got only 3 calls in the whole 2015.
I understand now that my past success was only thanks one trendy buzzword on my resume, and that the hoodie CTO who was interviewing me was 90% right.
My weak sides:
>I never learnt any real OOPL. I didn't even study JS as a programming language
>Bad credentials: BCIT marketing and no-name college in Russia where I studied 1C
>Never made connections in the "hip tech," with ones who wear hoodies, use Macs and buy coffee in Starbuckses.I always preferred to work with "Serious People," who were in their majority completely computer-illiterate
>My English is good, but I have a terrible Russian accent despite the fact that I lived 1/3 of my life in English speaking countries
>I spent most of my career in Canada, but I never bothered to get a PR as I thought that employers will always be eager to get me a work permit, and it is better to not to become a Canadian taxpayer for life.
I spent 95% of my savings on buying my first apartment last year. What I have now will sustain me until the end of the year.
What should I do now? Learn React and lie about my past experience? Go to places with less competition, like London or Singapore?
More importantly,what should I do as a person? Continue trying to make a living in Canada, or return to a soon to be North Korea redux Russia? All of my classmates are on the path of settling down,and I believe I am the only one without plans for life
Next, you probably need to go back to the basics. Pick up an introductory programming textbook, in PDF form if you are cutting your expenses. Learn basic OOP, basic algorithms and data structures, runtime complexity, functional programming, understanding when you would choose what tool. There is nothing worse than a senior programmer who can only think in the paradigm of the programming language they have accidentally built their career upon. If you don't demonstrate a basic understanding of these things, and aren't able to speak to the above within the context of jQuery, then you are at a disadvantage.
Learning another framework is not the solution. It's a bandaid at best. You will just find yourself in the same position again in a few years when your tool of choice falls out of favor. Break the cycle by becoming a software engineer.
In terms of your living situation, congratulations on buying a place. If you run out of time or money then rent out your apartment and move abroad where you can live on a lower cost of living, but I think you can and should make your stand now against becoming a useless lamer.