Yep, I agree entirely. I have a few irons in the fire that merge my knowledge of academic research/biology with software development. As you mentioned though,

Yep, I agree entirely. I have a few irons in the fire that merge my knowledge of academic research/biology with software development. As you mentioned though, academic research is a traditionally difficult place to make much money. The problem is three-fold: -Many academics are Luddites, that excel file works great damnit -Academics have extremely small budgets since it is all grant money, and grants are getting ever more difficult to get -Academics are used to free software, be it open source or something another academic has created. Or in-house expertise. For example have an engineering grad student doing work on our 2-photon microscope, including custom software. With that said, not many people write software for academics since there isn't much money. If you made something indispensable I imagine you could very easily corner the market. Regardless, I have no doubt that I need to get out of academic biology. It isn't a sane career choice, where you bank your success on improbable luck, randomness of biological systems and stupidly long hours. Plus the pay sucks until you are 40. :)