Career wise, no. Learning wise, yes, its a step backwards. PHP has nothing new to offer. If you want to stick to api/backend dev, pick up node, its "async ever

Career wise, no. Learning wise, yes, its a step backwards. PHP has nothing new to offer. If you want to stick to api/backend dev, pick up node, its "async everything" mindset is very hard to turn back from once you become accustomed to it. One big benefit of this would be getting good at javascript, which can help you become a proper full stack dev(browser, and mobile with react-native). If you want to explore systems programming, or high perf computation, golang is a good option. Or switch to a completely new area of programming, like data science, where python has a stronghold for now.