Perhaps my question is not really suitable for Q&A, but this is not a topic for Habra. Without background to do...
About 7 years doing programming for about 5 years do this for a living. After graduation, it took more than two years, and I still not got a job because stuck in their own "projects" (they bring money, but do not allow the development).
Initially I made a bad choice: Delphi (windows application) and PHP (web). Both speak a good level.
Wrote on Delphi and Windows applications (light client for popular MMORPG games), and multithreaded server (authentication server for the same game), and a relatively low level libraries (SPI-provider-external protection module client applications). About a development I wrote on Habre:
Analogue Time Machine for WindowsPHP was developed as separate modules (with private rooms, admin panel, internal libraries), and full websites from scratch. The most popular resource currently has about 30 thousand unique visitors a day (400-500 thousand pages viewed).
Of course I had to do the administration (linux, apache, nginx), and work with DBMS (MSSQL, MySQL), and write an HTML page (CSS, Javascript, jQuery). But this side knowledge, but not my profile.
Yesterday and started looking at jobs and I realized that was "in flight" (not to say that it was a big surprise): major IT companies (yandex, mail, google, ...), knotted on the Internet, do not need PHP programmers. To work for a company with a staff of 10 employees and do every week another site to order I don't want to. I like to create what you use every day, thousands of people. I love to program. I want to be able to launch a browser to load the page and say, "I did it".
How to achieve this? How to get in Yandex developer?
Obviously, the answer is to study at a sufficient level Java or C++. What to bet, so in the future regret? Probably Java.
Whether really house books to learn Java (and how it may take time) in order not to fail an interview in Yandex? Or Yandex is too high, and still have to work in smaller companies to gain experience.
I really need a vector of development, because I don't want another year to stagnate.
PS Or am I mistaken that with PHP you can't build a good career?