Oh, I work at the University of Washington in the astronomy department - so, definitely academia. I am just classified as “professional research staff,” which distinguishes me from students and faculty.

As I mentioned below, I got into this field by emailing a professor out of the blue, essentially saying “Hi, I am a software engineer interested in working on astronomy software. What’s your world like?”

That’s a dream of mine (astronomy and SWE) but alas earning money is a higher priority right now and unclear when that will change