Comment by JustExAWS

I don’t have anything against Azure as a servíce. But Azure is mostly popular among “the enterprise” and government. Microsoft shops naturally tend to prefer Azure. If you want to work with startups and get out of “Big Enterprise”, Azure isn’t what you should be focused on.

On the other hand, going from .Net Framework to .NET Core + Azure may be the path of least resistance to get into a modern ecosystem. Despite what you read on HN, most developers work in boring old enterprises.

As far as startups, ageism is real. But it is more nuanced. They will hire older developers. But only in if you have the experience “you should”. They offer me jobs when they want someone strategic, and knows the modern tech scene.

But understand, the issue with focusing on “in demand” skills is that everyone is doing it and it’s almost impossible to stand out - it’s a shit show out here right now. You’ll have a lot less competition in the Microsoft ecosystem and it will be a lot easier to convincingly tell a tale about using modern MS technologies.

I am not however discouraging you from leaning deep into the JS ecosystem, its table stakes and has been for 20 years.