[pipeline_peak]

It's all about what you're interested in. If that's gaming or app development, C# is a fine language.

Just don't be a "language guy", my love for C# has kinda boxed me into a lot of enterprise software roles, particularly in desktop legacy and Cloud ERP. If that's what you want, more power to you.

People here love to rip on Java for a myriad of reasons, the ecosystem, boring enterprise roles. Well, Microsoft Java isn't too far out of that realm, don't let LINQ and fancy lambdas seduce you into thinking otherwise.

When you look at ugly old enterprise legacy code, it doesn't really matter what C-like language it's written in.

I know this wasn't asked, but last to say is, companies value employers who have a really good understanding of their products internal details and infrastructure. That's something you can't learn in a book or at school. They absolutely do not care about skills in these languages beyond expected competence. It certainly doesn't hurt, but there are a million other C# programmers who know advanced programming language features.

[atraac]

> Just don't be a "language guy", my love for C# has kinda boxed me into a lot of enterprise software roles, particularly in desktop legacy and Cloud ERP.

I'm in a similar situation. I love the language but I hate overall community and environment being all about Microsoft in most cases. It's really hard to get out too since most people will see you as the 'MS .NET guy'. There aren't that many companies that want generalists and good devs, most will look at you through the prism of being '.NET Developer' and having '.NET experience', not just 'developer' and 'experience'. It's a pain point of mine, even though I quite like .NET overall and productivity it comes with.

[pipeline_peak]

> There aren't that many companies that want generalists and good devs

That's the brutal honesty, but to be fair it's on us to distinguish ourselves. It's weird, I used to look forward to development in the real world because I wouldn't have to use all the "useless crap" I was forced to learn in College. Now that I finally see the practicality, I can't ever using it without a lengthy debate. The amount of a CS degree that's actually needed to do these jobs is ridiculous. I used to think bootcamps were a joke, but if I had to guess there's a lot more hungry devs out of there that blow grads out the water. While I grumblingly retire to my office chair like Richard Nixon.

> It's really hard to get out too since most people will see you as the 'MS .NET guy'.

Idk if this is regular job hunting behavior, but I get messages on LinkedIn for almost nothing but recruiters telling me about some DoD secret clearance .NET job, they never reveal the company unless you ask which I find weird, and then I shortly find out it's a .NET legacy job with pre generic C# and Visual Fucking Basic. Maybe I take myself far too seriously, but I can't help and feel offended when I get offers like that.

The only time recruiters contact me for something outside .NET, it's for C++ embedded systems, which does sound more interesting, but I found the embedded world stressful a lot, to be fair it was my first job so I dont really know.

[christophilus]

The enterprise culture is why I left. C# + Visual Studio remains the most productive combo I’ve worked with, though. I just can’t see myself going back, due to the culture. Also, I’m a VIM and Linux guy now, and hope to never run Windows again. .NET was not a first class experience in VIM the last time I tried.

[pipeline_peak]

Did you find work in Software Development for Unix?

In university, I was the other way around, when I got out I said "time to roll up your sleeves and stop using printf to debug things, VS is where things get done".

Little did I realize I'd transition from a chipper, curious regex piper into a jaded highly productive custodian.

[christophilus]

I became a web developer, basically. Doing web apps, web services, etc in Ruby, Node, and Go. It was a pretty easy transition. If you know and love programming in C#, my guess is you can pick up just about anything in a short amount of time.

[mattcristal]

What about web services and REST APIs?

[pipeline_peak]

Anything popular like that you're gonna find good support available on .NET, that goes for any corporate backed language ecosystem. I think that's why Node has a reputation for being a mess in terms of reliability, there's just so much sub par crap with no company to be responsible for. .NET has a package community as well, , but on average, the stuff in there is just....better lol.

But again, nothing about these languages are distinct or remarkable enough to make career changes, the bigger picture here.