Answer 1

For a MS person (or experienced programmer) switching to client-side development:

1) Understand that HTML and CSS are not programming languages, so they can feel limiting.

2) Understand that the prototype for JavaScript was put together in ten days, so it can feel messy.

Note: For performance reasons, try to maximize the amount of mileage you can squeeze out of HTML and CSS before resorting to JavaScript. It can be pretty tempting to use JavaScript as a sledgehammer / nuclear option.

External resources:

https://www.w3schools.com/
(The tutorials are okay, but the references and How To are more useful)

https://css-tricks.com/
(Almanac, guides, and other articles... be mindful of the publication dates though)

https://caniuse.com/
(Browser compatibility wrangling)

https://www.w3.org/TR/
(Standards, "documentation")

Remember to use the browser dev tools too.

I think that should provide a decent foundation and gets you ready for libraries and frameworks.

Welcome to the dark side! 😁

Answer 2

Node.js with express and react.js,
a MERN stack would be an ok choice !