How do I get from my developers desk closer to field work?

Alright, I’ve been working as a developer for about four years now - full stack but mostly front end during the past years. It seems to me that my paths forward would be going into people and management or tech specific stuff like architecture. The thing is I don’t really like any of these options, what I like is to create systems and fuck around with them. Preferably I’d like to be hands on technologies in a field somewhere gathering data and discovering connections. What kind of technologies or programming languages would help me get there? I’ve thought about GIS but there must be several options, right? I’m not really interested in getting stuck in KPIs as an analyst or anything in the commercial wheel. I want real science. I’ve got no problem working with people but I do enjoy how fast time flies by trying to solve a task on my own. Pls help, I’ve got no idea where to go from here