Hacker News Reader

We (the Society of Research Software Engineering) maintain a jobs board at https://society-rse.org/careers/vacancies/. Or if you are in the US, they have their own (https://us-rse.org/jobs/)

in the uk, https://www.jobs.ac.uk/search/?keywords=RSE&location= gets you five hits today and I expect you would find more similar posts that werent currently branded research software engineer if you looked - the term is still quite new for many academic depts. One thing you'll need is patience if you want one of these positions - I remember being offerred an academic post three months after interviewing for the position and when I queried how on earth it could have taken so long to offer the post I was met with incredulity that there was an issue at all.

You might be able to find research institutes or national labs (I'm a research engineer at one of these). If you're in Europe, something like the Max Planck Institute might fit the bill.

Aside, can I ask why you don't want to work at a college or university?