[hakann]

Thank you for your input. A situation "where I am proximal to good developers and expected to be learning SE practices while working as a subject matter expert (SME) to developers" would be the perfect solution for me. It is just difficult to find.

I am flexible on salary besides junior devs are already making same or more than me as a hardware guy.

[marquis]

I would also recommend to be careful where you take a job: do you want to use your quick mind to build APIs or SQL queries, or do you want to be doing something more innovative like machine learning, or building codecs, crytography or working with data streams. There are some great companies out there (like Matasano for example), who will train you on the job in some pretty awesome areas.