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This is really funny, what with all the non-tax lawyers trying to explain to the tax lawyer what kinds of lawyers work for the IRS.... I can't answer the questions about pay/QOL/hiring, but I do have a general idea of what kinds of law jobs there are in the government.

1) Litigation. Most of the trial work is done by IRS District Counsel. They handle all Tax Court litigation (i.e., 95% of the meaningful civil tax litigation in the country). My guess is they would hire midlevel- or senior-associate level folks, if that's what you mean by "fairly senior." Good job if you like brief writing. There are also a set of Special Trial Attorneys within IRS who help out on major Tax Court litigation. I would guess you need serious litigation experience to get one of those jobs.

DOJ Tax Division handles the Court of Federal Claims and District and Bankruptcy Courts. The CFC gets some interesting refund cases. The District Courts get tax protestors, summons enforcement, and not much else. There are separate sections of the Tax Division for CFC and other Civil Trial work.

Appellate work is done by the DOJ Tax Division, Appellate Section. Criminal work is done by a separate section (sections?) of DOJ Tax.

There is a quasi-litigation group within DOJ called the Office of Review that reviews proposed settlements in major cases. I imagine that would be sort of a neat job if you have significant tax litigation experience.

2) Non-Litigation. IRS Office of Chief Counsel is a huge organization. They write PLRs, technical advice, legal memoranda to the field and to service centers, litigation support, and work with Treasury on published rulings and regulations projects. They are generally organized by area of tax law, and also have a criminal division that assists in criminal investigation before a referral is made to DOJ for prosecution. There are a lot of people who have made a career of moving in and out of Chief Counsel jobs and private practice jobs seeking rulings from Chief Counsel (generally at the Big 4 national offices or large DC law firms).

In addition, there are separate counsel offices for the major divisions of the IRS (for income tax law, that would be LMSB and SB/SE). I think those offices are where District Counsel is now organizationally located, but in addition to litigation attorneys, the divisions have lawyers who advise the division leadership on national policy matters.

The Treasury Department's Office of Tax Policy does domestic tax policy, rulings and regulations projects, and assists in drafting legislation, through the Office of Tax Legislative Counsel, and performs similar tasks in the international area (including treaty negotiation) through the Office of International Tax Counsel. These folks also have jobs for more senior people with good academic credentials. (They consider themselves pretty intellectual.)

The Joint Committee on Taxation employs a bunch of tax lawyers to help draft and revise legislation, draft explanations of legislation, evaluate large tax settlements, etc. I don't know what it takes to get hired there.