There are definitely learning opportunities in many jobs. Sometimes it's a new technology, sometimes it's about leadership / selling or learning to navigate te

There are definitely learning opportunities in many jobs. Sometimes it's a new technology, sometimes it's about leadership / selling or learning to navigate team dynamics. Your base pay is there, learning is an additional benefit. If you're not happy, change job. I try to be very stoic when dealing with other people's code: you can't control how things could have done in the past, so don't make your happiness depend on the quality of a codebase. Freelancing is going to be almost as boring as normal work: sure, sometimes you'll be able to select a cool project, but most of the times it will be the usual boring stuff you do in the office. Plus you have to chase invoices, sell yourself, market yourself. Building your own product is not much different than freelancing (lots of boring tech) but you're breaking the relationship between your time and money. I think it's entirely feasible to make a living with a small tech product - and it will allow to invest your time in more interesting and ambitious projects. I suggest you to: - Collect small business ideas you can easily automate - Look at YCombinator startup school talks, ignore the part about doing a business that will make billionz but keep all the other tips on how to make money - Learn something about selling / marketing - Look at levels.io presentation Bootstrapping side projects - Save enough money to be comfortable with assuming some risk - Try to build something that you like and that solves a problem - Indiehackers / Producthunt are good places to chat with like minded people