I was in your same position a few months ago. I also wanted to learn a new language to break free of the corporate hegemony. Here are a few lessons I did: 1. I

I was in your same position a few months ago. I also wanted to learn a new language to break free of the corporate hegemony. Here are a few lessons I did: 1. It's not about the language, it's about the work environment. C#/.NET is just a tool, like Ruby, Scala, Clojure, etc. It's not the cause of your misery. Your work environment sounds like what's causing your misery. Get out of there, find a startup, find a problem that you'd love solving. Even though you use .NET in that new project, your life will be 10x better. In the end, it's not the technology that is causing you strife, it's the environment you're using it in. 2. Work for yourself. You say you get a lot of interest from people you've worked with before. Why don't you start your own consulting business... do business your way.