My background:
I am a 3rd-year PhD student in epidemiology, with a strong interest in genetic epidemiology. I am also a lifelong computer tinkerer, but have never worked as a professional software developer. I've taken a few masters-level bioinformatics courses during my PhD just out of interest/to scratch the coding/tinkering itch, but it is not my PhD area.
Going into graduate school, I thought my career path was obvious: tenure-track professor. But now that I've seen what life is like for them -- chronically busy and overworked, and most of their time on teaching/service/administration not leaving much time for research work -- I am seriously rethinking my desire to pursue that career path. But at this point I have only a vague idea what the alternatives are...
I like:
1) Research to find out what causes diseases, especially from a genetic epidemiology perspective
2) Writing code
3) Analyzing data
I don't like:
1) Highly unstable jobs where I would be constantly, frantically writing grants and lying awake at night worrying about losing my job if they don't come through (I think most non-tenure-track positions like "research professor" are like this?)
2) Being in a "management-level position" or other jobs that would involve not being able to get my hands dirty with the things on the "I like" list
3) The thought of leaving science and doing something like working with data for marketing/insurance/etc.
What career options (in or out of academia) are available to me if I still want to be able to spend at least 25% of my time on my own research topics (there is a specific disease I am particularly interested in working on)? Are there positions where you can try for your own grants, but don't have to worry too much about the times when you don't get them because then you just spend more time working on other peoples' projects instead of losing your job?
Or, if I am willing to let go of the idea of choosing my own research topics, what PhD career paths out there would maximize the amount of time I get to spend on things on the "I like" list while minimizing/avoiding the things from the "I don't like" list?