.NET is huge for job prospects. Outside of the valley I see more .NET than any other language. There are a lot of government/military contracts as well as large corporations who have their whole infrastructure on Microsoft and so all development is done on it.

That being said, if you are reading HN you are probably interested in the startup community and you will not find as many startups using it.

If you like .NET you can also do iPhone and Android development using http://xamarin.com/.

Thanks sontek xamarin sounds pretty interesting

I concur, but do have to clarify(as in another comment) that those corporations are mostly using ASP.NET Web Forms and only now slowly moving to ASP.NET MVC.

.NET is very pragmatic as far as job opportunities go (I'll leave it for the zealots to dither about "startup" jobs vs "enterprise" jobs).

I'm hit up multiple times a week with emails or calls from recruiters wondering if I'm available or know anybody that is.

You may as well start off in MVC3, but the fundamentals between 2 and 3 are the same so learning using content targeted at 2 will carry over to 3.

As far as training, Pluralsight was mentioned in another comment below, it's an excellent resource and well worth the subscription fee for it's breadth of content. In addition tekpub.com offers training vids in MVC. Both Pluralsight and tekpub offer videos that go beyond .NET into things like javascript, jquery, Android dev, iOS, CSS etc...

Thank for chiming in @jbigelow I am on Pluralsight and that is a great resource indeed. However, since I do not have any VB programming experience should I start learning VB first and then get into ASP.NET ?

No. Learn C#. There is much wider adoption of C#, and in the early days of .NET C# skills actually commanded a higher salary (it has the letter C, it must be good).

C# gets a lot more love from MS than VB does.

Yes, ASP.NET MVC is very practical.

It's not completely main stream in the .NET community right now, and you will find that a lot of enterprises are still on Web Forms. None of that matters in the slightest though.

You do not want to work anywhere that isn't looking to make a move to MVC, or that is under the impression that knowing MVC you can't figure Web Forms out on the job.

I just left one employer (50,000 + employees) doing MVC (along with Web Forms, RoR, iPhone and other stuff), to move to another much smaller (but better paying) employer doing MVC. I live in flyover country (Knoxville TN) and am getting close to west coast rates doing MVC.

There are lots of jobs for anyone capable and willing to do ASP.NET. But building a career on .NET can lock you into the Microsoft ecosystem in the eyes of many employers. Depending on how you look at it, that can be a good or bad thing.

I have tried to get hands on with Android development but since I did not have a Java background i hit a wall. I am discovering a liking for .NET

I'm curious about this statement, mainly because C# in .NET is very close to Java. The Visual Studio IDE definitely makes things more approachable for newbies than Eclipse, but I'm interested to know more about the 'wall' you are hitting with Java.

@hkarthik I understand getting trapped in the ecosystem. That is a choice I would have to make if I am going into .NET.

By the wall probably it is the Visual studio IDE that is making the learning process easier for me. Probably that is what it is.

You don't have to be trapped in the ecosystem. I made a transition from a .Net ecosystem into Linux + Java a while back. It's hard, but not impossible, especially if you keep up to date with your non-.Net skills.

ASP.NET is big in enterprise, especially related to government contracting in the US. However most demand currently is in ASP.NET Web Forms although ASP.NET MVC is slowly taking hold.

Good point, Webforms is more prevalent since they have been around for years and are entrenched as legacy in a lot of places. But MVC is making inroads, I've been using it at my job since version 1. Some of it may also come down to recruiters not including MVC yet in their "grocery list" of requirement buzzwords when staffing a position.

The OP might have more luck getting in with a consulting firm if possible since the variety of projects could lead to greater chances of working with MVC and more current .NET tech.