Do part-time ML/DL jobs exist?

Hi all, in the same spirit that Jeremy usually takes half of his day to learn something new everyday, I’d be interested in using a large chunk of my days to develop my skills and work on my own projects. Do part-time ML/DL jobs exist? I haven’t come across any such jobs, so I’d like to ask the community.

Otherwise, is it common for full-time jobs to allow engineers to work on developing their skills during a significant part of the day? Or is the freedom to develop skills and work on projects exclusive to engineers who have their own business or work as contracted consultants?