You haven’t missed anything and your skills are still relevant if you want to solve problems.

Laravel or Python with server-side rendered pages is still perfectly valid and will be better than the majority of websites today. People who say otherwise have their career at stake because they know nothing but React and need to use it everywhere (regardless of whether it’s necessary) to ensure their survival.

You don’t need Docker either. It helps in some cases but also adds an extra layer of abstraction and moving parts so I’d avoid it when possible. If your app just relies on a database and maybe a cache server it’s easy enough to install those locally without Docker.