Another interesting opportunity is data journalism and news application development: every project is on a 1-4 week deadline and because every news app / data v

Another interesting opportunity is data journalism and news application development: every project is on a 1-4 week deadline and because every news app / data visualization / ... is a standalone thing with no maintenance burden, you can mess around with new tech all you want, as long as you hit those deadlines. There's also academia -- though even there, you will need to follow through and translate your learning into something you can communicate to the scientific community.