[ecaroth]

Dealt with this myself. The side projects only go so far to help you deal with this. I also found myself so into the side projects that I would often find myself distracted from my actual job. I'm sure you plan on sticking with your career field for many years to come. If you absolutely need the money/stability, stick it out (at least for a while). But if you are ready & willing to take some chances, ask yourself first if this corporate job is teaching you skills you can continue to use, and move up/forward, for the rest of your career or are you a 'worker drone'. A corporate job can teach you boatloads about how to run stable apps at scale, but usually stifle innovation & creativity. Working at a startup or smaller shop will usually get you much more exciting and creative projects and challenges, however the tradeoff is that you usually have to accept much more responsibility for what you build. You won't always have a rigorous test suite, QA department, and week-long rollout cycles. I can tell you though, from somebody who came from the exact same place, working at a startup is 20x more rewarding and fulfilling.