Scientific software, maybe? Everything I use to control equipment in my lab is terrible and expensive. I don't know how you'd go about getting into that without

Scientific software, maybe? Everything I use to control equipment in my lab is terrible and expensive. I don't know how you'd go about getting into that without getting a contract from a manufacturer to develop their software for their devices though, since I'm sure all this stuff relies on undocumented and poorly-designed drivers to start with.