In what direction should a webmaster develop?

Question

PHP

I work as a seo specialist in a company that will soon fall apart due to the negligence of management. From three departments of 5-10 people, 5 employees remained in the company. The only thing that keeps me in this place is loyalty to vacations and days off when I need it, and walking distance from home. I also sometimes get work at home to improve or create websites from the company's clients, respectively, for money.
Ideally, I would like to go to work towards a developer or php programmer. I do site promotion work, I also make sites on modX evo from design and layout to programming and implementation of functionality.
Like most professionals in my field, I learned everything myself. In most cases, when I took on some kind of order, I did not know how to do it and did it for the first time, but I coped.
By education (secondary specialty) technician-programmer, everything is fine with logic and algorithmization. I know php well, oops I don't know. I know JS superficially, if you need some kind of calculator for the site or something like that, I analyze the example and finish it for myself. I mainly make business card sites on modX and refine sites on this cms, made simple online stores, parsers, auto-correct prices on the site according to the list with articles and prices, various order forms and calculators ...
I'm more used to taking work and doing it alone, quietly in the corner than to discuss it with the client, offer it, etc. - therefore, work on freelance sites somehow did not work for me. Since all my orders come to me from processed clients, I do not know the price of my work and it is difficult for me to evaluate it and put price tags on projects myself.
I don't want to stop there and develop further. Moreover, in the near future you will have to change jobs.
I want to get away from SEO. In what direction to develop, so that in the future you can always find a job?
It is worth taking some courses now, collecting certificates (for example, on www.intuit.ru/). Or is it better to focus on the portfolio and look for freelance? Engage in separate study of the theoretical side and knowledge of the language from and to, or continue to open the directory only when you need to do something.

Answer 1

What about the options? As a designer, SEO, backend, frontend or manager.
It's better to be a manager.
But back-end and front-end workers will always find work.
It is much more difficult for a designer to find a good job with a comparable income.

I know php well, oops I don't know.

These are mutually exclusive phrases. It says that your knowledge of PHP is nowhere worse if you don’t even know OOP.

Answer 2

It is worth taking some courses now, collecting certificates (for example, on www.intuit.ru/). Or is it better to focus on the portfolio and look for freelance? Engage in separate study of the theoretical side and knowledge of the language from and to, or continue to open the directory only when you need to do something.

Nobody needs certificates, you need a portfolio and real skills.
If we talk about interviews in the office, then there is a certain gentleman's set of algorithms and patterns that you need to know and be able to apply.
Freelancing only looks at the portfolio.
By the way, I don't agree. If this is a designer with an education and a sense of taste, and not "I downloaded Photoshop and drew something in it for a year" - then the designer can actually earn money many times more than the coolest backend.
Otherwise, it's not a designer, but shit.

It's better to be a manager

Nope.
Pure project managers have been getting somewhere between junior and regular developers for a long time.
Either a product manager (but for this you need to have good experience and understanding of the market) or a team leader (but for this you need to have technical skills in addition to managerial skills)

Answer 3

I don't recommend intuit at all.

Answer 4

I'm more accustomed to taking a job and doing it alone, quietly in a corner, than discussing it with a client, offering it, etc. - therefore, work on freelance sites somehow did not work for me.

From the description, I think it's easiest for you to look for a permanent job. Perhaps, remotely, in order to sit quietly at home - to cut the code. Somewhere junior RNR. Or freelancing, but with a partner of any type: a front-end developer, designer, SEO specialist, the main thing is that he communicates with the client during the load.
- you will definitely have to learn OOP, get acquainted with the patterns.
- you need to deal with some MVC framework (for example, Yii2)
Decide in which segment you want to start working first. Websites? "Clean" backend and all sorts of server parts? Enterprise web applications? Based on this, choose additional technologies that you need.
Courses, certificates - I do not recommend. Only practice, only hardcore.

Answer 5

I read your report:
1. Definitely not a backend! (See the answer of OnYourLips )
Bottom line: JS+HTML5+PhoneGap client applications (for a wrapper for mobile devices)
are just what you understand best.