[asoplata]

There's a small but growing amount of "research software engineers", people who attempt to bring professional-level software development to scientific research, and help scientists achieve their goals (example org: https://us-rse.org/ ). That's what I do as of recently (see https://hnn.brown.edu/ ): left my last post-doc, and switched to full-time development on a scientific computing package in my old domain (computational neuroscience).