Yes to both. Changed careers to do this when I discovered I had both the aptitude and interest. I've only had the marginal success doing it that I've had a result of substantial time invested studying independently.

With that said, I'm absolutely burnt out on endless meetings, bs deliverables, mismanagement, and cargo-cult testing nonsense on Yet Another Crud App.

I too spend substantial time reading about build systems, programming languages, etc. I want nothing more to work on something at least marginally interesting with the opportunity to learn from my peers. That's not at all present in my current circumstances.

I wouldn't do _this_ given a hypothetical lottery windfall.