Ugh. This "answer" is the textual equivalent of an imspirational poster with a picture of a cute animal -- it sounds really nice, but doesn't say much of anything, or have any actionable advice. What advice it does have is bad: "Figure out how to change the world from your current job". Right then. Hang in there, champ. Stay where you are. The world is better than it seems, mmkay?
Fuck that.
The answer to your question is simple, and has very little to do with "changing the world" from your current job: you need to reach for what you want. If you're not happy with your current work, find new work that's better. Nobody is just going to hand you a plum job because you're kicking ass on CRUD apps. The world doesn't work that way. And it's highly unlikely that you're going to move into ML or compiler design by writing a classifier or a DSL for your current CRUD app-writing gig.
Want to be doing machine learning? Apply to positions that involve machine learning. Those could be at your current company, but probably not. You might have to take a pay cut. You might have to move. You might have to go outside of your comfort zone. But you need to work for it.
Can't get a job doing what you want because you're not qualified? Okay, fine. Go back to school. Find a junior-level job in a field that's orthogonal to what you really want. Maybe get a low-paying tech position in an academic lab that does research into ML or compilers or computer graphics or something else. Take courses at the local university in statistics, math and theory. Get an MS or PhD. People on HN will tell you that college is a waste of time, but they're wrong. They're mostly trapped doing CRUD work, like you. Education -- and certification -- matters. So, get some, if you're not qualified. Work your ass off, and learn theory. Most of your peers won't do the work.
The point is that you "escape the trap" by working really hard in a focused way. And it's a bit of a hill-climbing problem, because you don't really know your end goal, and you don't really know what the path looks like to get there, but you nearly always know a direction that's "up" from where you are right now. So, step aggressively in an upward direction. The way you avoid getting trapped is by not standing still.
Fuck that.
The answer to your question is simple, and has very little to do with "changing the world" from your current job: you need to reach for what you want. If you're not happy with your current work, find new work that's better. Nobody is just going to hand you a plum job because you're kicking ass on CRUD apps. The world doesn't work that way. And it's highly unlikely that you're going to move into ML or compiler design by writing a classifier or a DSL for your current CRUD app-writing gig.
Want to be doing machine learning? Apply to positions that involve machine learning. Those could be at your current company, but probably not. You might have to take a pay cut. You might have to move. You might have to go outside of your comfort zone. But you need to work for it.
Can't get a job doing what you want because you're not qualified? Okay, fine. Go back to school. Find a junior-level job in a field that's orthogonal to what you really want. Maybe get a low-paying tech position in an academic lab that does research into ML or compilers or computer graphics or something else. Take courses at the local university in statistics, math and theory. Get an MS or PhD. People on HN will tell you that college is a waste of time, but they're wrong. They're mostly trapped doing CRUD work, like you. Education -- and certification -- matters. So, get some, if you're not qualified. Work your ass off, and learn theory. Most of your peers won't do the work.
The point is that you "escape the trap" by working really hard in a focused way. And it's a bit of a hill-climbing problem, because you don't really know your end goal, and you don't really know what the path looks like to get there, but you nearly always know a direction that's "up" from where you are right now. So, step aggressively in an upward direction. The way you avoid getting trapped is by not standing still.