Even though I personally avoid the clusterf%%% of the modern front end development ecosystem like the plague, I would never say that “web development” is not “software development”.
As far as his lack of a formal education, with 12 years of experience, it doesn’t matter.
It’s not like my degree in 1996 from a no name school had anything to do with me getting a job in 2008.
I had a feeling you might take this point of contention. I know I did not phrase it in the most sensitive way, but I was trying to highlight that his journey was different than a typical C# developer, for example. A minimum wage web-dev is not expected to know what an algorithm is, how anything is stored in memory, uncommon data structures, etc. And a tech director has a wide range of options but likely is more about managing other people than being a highly skilled individual contributor who can go make 200k easy at another job. Maybe all he did was update wordpress templates. Maybe in 12 years he has specialized in something worth $110k to this company but barely applicable anywhere else. We have no clue
All I know is that the OP didnt mention feeling underpaid, and the question was not about how to find a new job