In reply to sarah.

Michael,

Everyone's statements are based on their perception, so that goes without saying as are yours. So unless there are quantified stats, your perceptions are no more definite reality than mine.

That said, no reason to get defensive. Sounds like you are one of the skilled ones, and that's great. But that does not mean that most "WordPress developer" do not have your skills.

As for only developers being the ones looking down on other developers, sorry but that is objectively not true. Many technical project managers at agencies started out as developers and they bring their bias with them.

In my business we typically do backend work for digital agencies who only use WordPress because their client want them to, not because they want to.

I live in Atlanta, GA USA and there are easily 100+ agencies here, most of which would prefer not to use WordPress if their clients would allow it (they often want to use SiteCore or similar there the billing rates are much higher.) The same may or may not be true elsewhere, but I suspect that it is true more often than not (except for very small agencies serving small business.)

Go to a local WordPress meetup or WordCamp. Many who attend in Atlanta at least would struggle to write a basic plugin in PHP, let alone use code functionality to the REST API.

Bottom line. There is no reason for this to upset you. Lean into it, it means you are worth a lot more to clients than the average "WordPress developer."