Ask HN - need some advice, I'm stuck

You do have Java expertise, so Android would be a logical step. Try out Jetbrain's and Google's new Android Studio to leapfrog over the Eclipse experience. Alternatively learn AngularJS or a similar JS framework and use PHP to serve JSON to state-of-the-art single-page type apps. You can run such PHP scripts on the new Appengine for PHP, so you end up with a highly scalable solution that is also not bad in performance. I think the best way to progress is take something that you know and combine it with state-of-the-art practises or tech. Be glad that you didn't learn some of the technologies that developed over the past years (Rails for example is starting to get out of fashion since it is not so useful/overkill for JS apps) and leapfrog to the new ones.

If someone smirked at me for knowing PHP, I'd gladly walk away from the conversation. Knowing a programming language (actually, knowing anything) is a positive thing. PHP isn't glamorous but it is widely used, popular, and effective at solving a goal.

That being said, I was a Delphi developer for 5 years out of school. There's a random little used language for you. I spent a year teaching myself iOS, brushing up on my PHP and javascript. I then tweaked my resume depending on the job I was applying to, regarding the order I listed the languages. Get someone on the phone/interview and explain to them how great you are from there.

Of course, in your mid thirties you might have less freedom to take an entry level job.

PHP is perfect to develop and sell your own web-related products (extensions, plugins, themes, integrations).

I started my career as a developer by learning PHP over a decade ago, it's still the language I know best, and I was even Zend certified at one point, but I don't describe myself as a "PHP dev," and neither should you. You're a developer, and most of your experience is in PHP. It's a subtle, but important difference.

I'm going to advise you to diversify your skillset, but first, if you really want to stay within the PHP world, find an agency (or start your own) that does a lot of work with either Drupal or Wordpress. They're not corporate, and there are plenty of them.

If you really want to get "unstuck," learn something new. Here's what you're going to do: find a hackathon that takes place a month from now (see http://www.hackathon.io/ or ask Uncle Google), and register for it. Then spend the next month learning Android, AngularJS, Backbone.js, Python, Rails, or whatever your hackathon is based on, and then go to the event and use it.

Given that you already have a job as a developer, there's no reason for you to be unemployable, ever. If you have a corporate job now, I have a hard time imagining that you don't have some slack in your day that you could devote to trying out Android or AngularJS, as julianpye suggested; or Backbone.js, or Python, or Rails, or whatever. If you can't find the time at work, throw your TV off the roof of your house/apartment building and spend an hour or two on it at night.

Come back next month and if you're still stuck, post again and we'll talk. (But I'm pretty sure you won't be stuck.)

You can start some side projects in other language like Python or Ruby, do some coding, work on freelance gigs, and earn some experience. That way you will have something to use in a future interview.