You sound like a freelancer or something. Every single company I interviewed for in the last couple of years as a full stack dev *required* experience in React/Vue/Angular 2+. With old school js/html/css you wouldn't even pass CV screening. Best you could get with that is some wordpress gig for peanuts.
I'm not hating, might be a language barrier, I'm from Poland, sorry.
1. Definitely not in my country. The average pay of a Wordpress/PHP dev is half of a modern full stack and the clients are terrible, because it's just websites for small businesses. Modern full stacks don't create websites most of the time, but highly interactive B2B apps.
2. It is absolutely my client. I optimize their happiness not their customers. I have no relationship with the customers, some don't know who I am.
3. I worked as a contractor for a couple of years and I'm not missing the stress and unstable pay. Especially now with a kid on board. Many contracts were actually "hey we need a React/[insert other tech] guy for our current project, wanna join?", not "we have an idea and we don't know how to do it" kind of thing. The latter are super rare and even more stressful, because they come from "non-technical startup founders" often with little money.
Keep in mind that I'm in EU, so the benefits of permanent employment make a huge difference.
This comment is pretty off-base.
1.) Those WordPress gigs can make your React gig look like indentured servitude
2.) The company you’re applying to isn’t the client.
3.) “freelancer or something”, like you’re spitting it out? Yes - some of us aren’t handcuffed to mediocrity by 200-1000 person orgs. As the kids say, “Don’t hate.”