[dkmn]

Anecdote: One of my most enjoyable SW jobs ever was working for a while as a staff project architect/programmer for a bioinformatics lab at the University of Washington. Great meaningful project, lots of freedom, smart colleagues. BTW I have a physics and life science (medicine) background, but it was partly coincidental, and an interested non-scientist could have done it and learned a lot. FWIW it did not pay exceptionally well, but it was reasonable salary at the time and the environment was really enjoyable and productive. This was a few years ago, but I would imagine given the current labor market there would still be significant need for academic staff SW positions. Good luck and post back if you do make a switch! As this thread indicates, this is a topic of interest to many.

Edited: Re-reading batbomb's reply, I also remembered a friend who is currently a data scientist for a venture-incubator, but was previously at a national lab. Many of the projects he described were very cool, and challenging.