I recently graduated from a master's degree while working on an interesting but niche intersection of machine learning and biology. This area is of my personal interest and I believe it can impact the world in the future but it is not readily marketable. Therefore, I decided to choose a position in a tech company as a software engineer, with works and responsibilities that are unrelated to this niche area. I don't want to give up my efforts in my previous research area and want to continue doing research as a personal passion in my free time such weekends or when I come home from my daily work (which btw I enjoy very much). I find this idea particularly interesting as I would have more freedom to think freely without feeling the pressure of publish or perish and I think it would make the research even more enjoyable to me compared to when I was in grad school and under pressure. However, there might be potential issues and caveats that I am blindsided to them, so I wanted to ask the people here about the potential downsides or considerations in doing research as a part-time or second career.