It's interesting how all these top companies insist on JS expertise, I didn't know that it was so important for an interview and that's something I need to work on.
The thing is, I think most interviewers ask for what they are most comfortable with, so they can evaluate. Which is why questions related to JS are probably so common for companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. even if you don't actually need it or use it.
However, I would also point out that JS is pretty easy, if you know any of the standard languages you'll be fine. Although, I do find it humorous because JS is basically one of the worst constructed languages I know of (even though I use it daily...).
There's a lot of software in the world that isn't web based. Hardware, operating systems, databases, AI, libraries, languages, compilers. There isn't a computer on this planet that functions without these things.
The comment about how easy it is to learn is spot on, in my experience. I was very surprised at how fast I ramped up on vanilla JavaScript and Angular.
"That is a thoroughly web-centric view of of the world." oh geezzz..... ◔_◔
If you have awesome, expert, deep, deep JavaScript then firstly you might as well be a unicorn but secondly, you will get a job.
I've been in software for over 20 years!
Not true. And weird, counterfactual statements like these are exactly why I don't like dealing with recruiters.
Bring on Web Assembly. Those who dislike what JS has become over the last 5-10 years will just use their own stuff and can finally just ignore JS completely.
And even when WebAssembly comes along, the best language to program it in is one that naturally requires asynchronous programming, because web browsers are heavy on network traffic and UI interaction and both those things need asynchronous programming.
Other languages like Python have asynch programming but I would suggest that the pervasive nature of asynch in JavaScript will continue to make it a leader in WebAssembly.
I find the 'ecosystem' unpleasant.
Every time I turn to JavaScript for something, the barrier to entry for non trivial work rises. JavaScript feels to me... As a programmer working 8 hours a day in Python much significant portions of it doing Django, and a few hours a week learning Elixir, C and Rust...
Like the whole world is rolling up a giant katamari daciamacy ball, over the shiftiest powdery sand in an active earthquake zone. I try WebPack and its default behaviour is to turn my sass into JavaScript?! I stick with it and go looking for a plugin to keep the build products directory clean, I find one tiny plugin with a tiny documentation page that barely explains it, so I have to read the source code and experiment a bit before I discover how it works.
Then there is the mess of "which way do you load modules" mixed with the mountain of code that was written for global scope. "Oh just rewrite the code" ... I'm sorry I'm too busy writing new code to waste time rewriting all this other code just because everything is churning like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
/end js induced unhappiness rant
I'm really happy with my productivity pretty much everywhere else. JavaScript just gets more frustrating to work with every time I touch it. :-/ I actually enjoy writing pure stand alone browser JavaScript when I'm not working with any libraries, like I said it's a fine language, it's just the ecosystem that I have issues with.
I think that you've already made your priorities loud and clear and JS isn't one of them.
I've switched to Dart, couldn't be happier. No more confusing JS bullshit :)