I actually did this switch 25 years ago for the same reasons. I studied Microelectronics in the UK and I was the first in my graduation year to get a job - 6 months later, by switching to software development (CPU and graphics card benchmarking).

It sort of worked out OK but I have regrets. I grew up wanting to be a hardware engineer but I'm not one.

If you switch to software development, I would recommend that you stay as low level as possible. I recently got back into embedded development and I became a lot happier because of it.

Good luck.