What I've noticed is in a lot of big enterprise shops that are playing "Agile" there is a big gap in support/tooling software; that is, software that makes developers more productive by automating repetitive tasks. Since this type of software doesn't exist to management because it won't fit nicely onto a Jira board or it can't be bent to fit a specific OKR, it's the perfect type of software to explore other languages.
Yes! It's also software that matters very little if you can't get a good support story for it - it's not customer facing and there are no SLAs, so worst case, everyone's automation fails but they can still get their job done. If you want to build a CLI for handling code reviews or an automated bisection tool using OCaml on a Raspberry Pi or whatever, that's way more acceptable than building customer-facing software (either services or shipped software) using OCaml on a Raspberry Pi.
Also, writing this type type of software makes you an actual 10x engineer (by making 10 other engineers more productive).
