I wouldn't trust a PHP developer who wasn't able to figure out how to become a JavaScript developer.

Not everyone wants to become a JavaScript developer.

Yet they became a PHP developer. Go figure.

… who are also relatively inexpensive and easy to find?

I often wish it weren't the case as much. There's a massive cassum the size of the Grand Canyon between the majority of JS devs and good JS devs that understand the language, and have a good grasp of software craftsmanship. And that doesn't mean stuffing JS based projects with "Enterprise" patterns that don't make sense in the platform being used.

JS devs who started around or just after covid are everywhere. JS devs with 10+ years of experience are a small fraction of the market at this point. JS devs with any number of years of experience who also understand JS (or even just CS in general) well are a minute fraction of JS devs.

But I can deploy a decent sized Laravel app in about 2 days... I would need to learn the javascript equivalent.

Normally PHP developers are competent in Javascript but try to avoid it due to the clusterfuck that javascript is, especially the ecosystem.

‘laughs in left-pad’