About 2 years ago I discovered a programming language called K. It's a very unusual-looking, extremely terse language in the APL family. It just "clicked" for me. I enjoy the ability to experiment with different algorithms and approaches in a few keystrokes, and learning to think in a "vector-oriented" fashion has opened my eyes to much more elegant formulations of old problems.

There aren't many extensive tutorial materials available for K, so when I decided to learn it I pored over the reference manual carefully and wrote an interpreter to try to match the spec. I built programming environments on top of my interpreter which are probably only suitable for my own use, but they make me deliriously happy to use. I made connections with both seasoned K programmers and other enthusiasts through my open-source projects with the language. Eventually I was approached with a few offers, and I am now gainfully employed by a firm which uses K more or less exclusively for backend work.

If you find a niche that makes you happy, and you're willing to invest the time to develop an unusual area of expertise, a career can follow naturally.