[jltsiren]

Research software engineers are paid what they are worth. Typically a bit more than a postdoc, but not that much more. The problem is that the academia is a cash-starved environment, and everyone's work is worth much less than similar work in the industry.

Another problem is the PI-centric model. Most of the funding goes to individual labs. If a typical grant is $200k/year, you are not going to pay competitive salaries. And you're probably not going to hire a software engineer, because then you won't have anyone doing the actual research.

[abought]

I think that's the rationale behind organizing separate teams as service organizations (mini contractors who serve multiple PIs).

Other option is research "centers" with multiple PIs. Not an option for most fields, but a few, like bioinformatics, can justify both the cost and the shared employee.