[defrost]

Personally I like doing orthogonal work and while I've written a million+ SLOC lines of GIS|geophysical aquisition and processing code after wading through OS dev and compiler writing I've also done weddings, parties, anything work elsewhere.

Another radical thought is to forget the IT industry first approach and look to other industries for suggestions of how you could best serve them and recommended contacts to chase up.

Mining, energy, construction, surveying, etc all have data heavy sides to them, specialist software, and particular hardware | processing needs.

Drones have embedded operating systems and a wide variety of sensor and control modules, they're used to inspect work, document multi spectral growth in agriculture, provide aerial footage in the AV industry (movies, streaming series, corporate documentaries, etc).

If you can visit trade shows for industries you've never really though about you will generally find interesting work that has an IT angle that is very probably starved for talented attention.