Quant strategy discussion: what’s actually worth researching now?

I’m working on building systematic strategies and wanted to open a discussion with others doing similar work. Rather than “signals that print money,” I’m interested in: • Research workflows that scale • Signal evaluation beyond backtest Sharpe • Risk management and portfolio-level thinking • Where people think retail quants still have an edge What approaches have you personally moved away from? What areas are you doubling down on now? Would love to learn from different perspectives from students to industry folks.