A soulless job in finance is better if you like(d) ML at all, because then you can keep your interests separate from your job.
I did read somewhere that for someone trying to write a book in their spare time, a job in editing is the worst possible thing to have for a similar reason.
Interesting! I never made that connection but now that you mention it it is obvious. Thanks.
I have friends who work in the M&A world (doing due diligence, C-level advise etc) both here in NL (you'll probably know them) and in the US/CA (in identity/credentials), guess I should have a chat with them :-)
But first I'm going to spend a few months doing something good - seeing if we can actually fix interoperability in healthcare in the EU. Lots of interesting things happening in that space ;-)
I've been in this area for a couple decades now and have seen technologies come and go, so I see my AI-related job now as just another generation of tools and making pretty sure that I keep my knowledge still valid in other non-AI related area in the tech space, so that I'm not a data-science/AI-framework-plumbing kind of person.
I keep an interest in standard C++ desktop development, which to me seem a safe harbour even time there is a collapse in some trendy technology.