My take is different: For "Web development as a career", the OP seems mostly to mean as an employee. Then I'd say, go down that road if you have to, but ASAP

My take is different: For "Web development as a career", the OP seems mostly to mean as an employee. Then I'd say, go down that road if you have to, but ASAP learn the business side, get your own software development environment (likely you already have it) in your own room at home, and then just be a sole proprietor in business much as a guy who owns and runs, say, a pizza shop, is a CPA, mows grass and plows snow, is a plumber or electrician, a car repair guy, an auto body guy, etc. Then you get some big advantages: (1) You are the one who gets the revenue and, thus, keeps the earnings. (2) Likely for each dollar of revenue, you have lower overhead than any employer and, thus, get more money. In particular, you get to cut out the fraction of the revenue going to the owners, managers, marketing guys, lawyers, HR, landlords, business insurance agencies, etc. (3) You have some tax advantages, often well known to sole proprietors. (4) For your technical qualifications, you only have to learn and use what you actually need and find useful. So, you don't have to play buzz word ice hockey with some HR clown who doesn't know fixed from float but has a checklist of C++, Python, Ruby, MongoDB, Jason, HTML5, .... Point (4) is crucial: Likely your customers just want their Web site developed, running, and occasionally revised. Okay, that's what you need to be able to do. But, you get to select the framework, languages, libraries, development environment, etc. If you need a new tool, then, sure get, learn, and use it. But you don't have to spend a lot of time learning, say, HTML5 or SVG if you don't need to use them yet. "The business of America is business", and in practice from crossroads up to the largest cities a lot of sole proprietor small businesses.