Agreed. There's a "before I knew React" and "After I knew React" bifurcation of my career.
Before, I could call myself a "full stack dev" because I could cobble together a site with JS, but it wasn't pretty. It didn't follow any real conventions, was a nightmare to maintain, forget about testing, etc.
After learning React, I actually can design, and structure the code in a logical way. Testing is a lot simpler, code reuse makes sense... it created a mental framework on which I could translate my ideas into usable code that pattern matched to how I was used to building code for the backend.
I will never feel like I'm a "frontend dev", but I don't need to be. I can take an idea, and turn it into a functioning service, and isn't that all we're here to do anyway?
Before, I could call myself a "full stack dev" because I could cobble together a site with JS, but it wasn't pretty. It didn't follow any real conventions, was a nightmare to maintain, forget about testing, etc.
After learning React, I actually can design, and structure the code in a logical way. Testing is a lot simpler, code reuse makes sense... it created a mental framework on which I could translate my ideas into usable code that pattern matched to how I was used to building code for the backend.
I will never feel like I'm a "frontend dev", but I don't need to be. I can take an idea, and turn it into a functioning service, and isn't that all we're here to do anyway?