I'm going to offer a differing opinion from @kolossus. If you are only 7 years into your career, you are still reaching your potential as a technologist. You have much more to learn, and if you are going to lead in the future you should have more experience to pass along - more successes and failures to see that will make you a better leader. Thinking that you should be a manager or lead just due to your experience is a mistake, as the best coders do not always make successful managers or leads.

Certifications, at least in the US, are generally of little value. The value they provide, in my eyes, is to light a fire for someone to learn a topic inside and out. The best part of getting a cert is the learning forced upon you with a deadline (the test), and failure of the test results in a waste of time and money. I causes you to study hard, and the knowledge is worth much more than the cert.

Stay in programming, and pick up some more marketable skills. You will probably need to do this on your own time. Databases skills transfer to any RDBMS, so you appear to have that going for you. Even just getting deeper PHP skills with your SQL experience should lead to potential opportunities. Look into languages like Ruby which are popular and generally considered easier to learn. Getting away from Microsoft technologies and more towards open source should also lead to more opportunities down the line. Companies tied to Microsoft may limit your choices, where Unix/Linux shops can have several languages in use.

I'm going to offer a differing opinion from @kolossus. If you are only 7 years into your career, you are still reaching your potential as a technologist. You have much more to learn, and if you are going to lead in the future you should have more experience to pass along - more successes and failures to see that will make you a better leader. Thinking that you should be a manager or lead just due to your experience is a mistake, as the best coders do not always make successful managers or leads.

Certifications, at least in the US, are generally of little value. The value they provide, in my eyes, is to light a fire for someone to learn a topic inside and out. The best part of getting a cert is the learning forced upon you with a deadline (the test), and failure of the test results in a waste of time and money. I causes you to study hard, and the knowledge is worth much more than the cert.

Stay in programming, and pick up some more marketable skills. You will probably need to do this on your own time. Databases skills transfer to any RDBMS, so you appear to have that going for you. Even just getting deeper PHP skills with your SQL experience should lead to potential opportunities. Look into languages like Ruby which are popular and generally considered easier to learn. Getting away from Microsoft technologies and more towards open source should also lead to more opportunities down the line. Companies tied to Microsoft may limit your choices, where Unix/Linux shops can have several languages in use.

I'm going to offer a differing opinion from @kolossus above. If you are only 7 years into your career, you are still reaching your potential as a technologist. You have much more to learn, and if you are going to lead in the future you should have more experience to pass along - more successes and failures to see that will make you a better leader. Thinking that you should be a manager or lead just due to your experience is a mistake, as the best coders do not always make successful managers or leads.

Certifications, at least in the US, are generally of little value. The value they provide, in my eyes, is to light a fire for someone to learn a topic inside and out. The best part of getting a cert is the learning forced upon you with a deadline (the test), and failure of the test results in a waste of time and money. I causes you to study hard, and the knowledge is worth much more than the cert.

Stay in programming, and pick up some more marketable skills. You will probably need to do this on your own time. Databases skills transfer to any RDBMS, so you appear to have that going for you. Even just getting deeper PHP skills with your SQL experience should lead to potential opportunities. Look into languages like Ruby which are popular and generally considered easier to learn. Getting away from Microsoft technologies and more towards open source should also lead to more opportunities down the line. Companies tied to Microsoft may limit your choices, where Unix/Linux shops can have several languages in use.

I'm going to offer a differing opinion from @kolossus. If you are only 7 years into your career, you are still reaching your potential as a technologist. You have much more to learn, and if you are going to lead in the future you should have more experience to pass along - more successes and failures to see that will make you a better leader. Thinking that you should be a manager or lead just due to your experience is a mistake, as the best coders do not always make successful managers or leads.

Certifications, at least in the US, are generally of little value. The value they provide, in my eyes, is to light a fire for someone to learn a topic inside and out. The best part of getting a cert is the learning forced upon you with a deadline (the test), and failure of the test results in a waste of time and money. I causes you to study hard, and the knowledge is worth much more than the cert.

Stay in programming, and pick up some more marketable skills. You will probably need to do this on your own time. Databases skills transfer to any RDBMS, so you appear to have that going for you. Even just getting deeper PHP skills with your SQL experience should lead to potential opportunities. Look into languages like Ruby which are popular and generally considered easier to learn. Getting away from Microsoft technologies and more towards open source should also lead to more opportunities down the line. Companies tied to Microsoft may limit your choices, where Unix/Linux shops can have several languages in use.