Ask HN: What are the most exciting, yet practical, areas of CS to get into?
Hi! What do you think will be the most exciting, and the most high-leverage areas of CS to be in, in the next 5-10 years?
But seriously...
Do you want to do research, say by getting a PhD and a University post, or work in industry?
It's actually quite uncommon for computer science to be used on the job in the computer industry.
You might be surprised at that, but consider what you would do if you wanted to sort a buffer full of integers, or the names of your users. You'd call the qsort() standard library from C, in C++ you'd put the items into an STL container than use the sort template, or it you used the list template you'd use list's sort member function.
The actual computer science here was done in the early 1960s by Hoare, who invented quicksort. All commercial coders ever do is look in their manuals, or maybe a web search.
This is not to say that CS research is not done in industry, but it is not commonly done.
Consider game physics. That was a solved problem three hundred years ago.
And why are you after leverage? Is it because you want to make a lot of money? That's not the only factor to consider.
Individual inclinations tend to be strong enough to pull you to specific directions. Which areas will be exciting? The ones that excite you! Be as proactive about finding what excites you as you are about worrying about the next 5-10 years.
That being said: the best leverage, no matter what your chosen path, is to be GREAT at what you do.