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Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

scientific-computing.com

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Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#51

Post by pathelectronica »

tensor wrote: post #33
magicbuzz wrote: post #15

Working in research as a software engineer can be very frustrating. I wrote the majority of the analysis code for one of the chapters of the IPCC 5th Assessment and yet was told my name couldn't be put anywhere as I wasn't a 'scientist'. I also consistently see people who have never written much code put in charge of projects where the majority of the work/research is writing software. These projects end up with no c…

Some would argue that no OO use is a good thing (assuming you are referring to object oriented programming). Expanding on this, writing research code is quite a bit different than writing production code. In particular, requirements can change quickly and drastically. This means that very open designs where you don't hide data (e.g. as is common in OO programming) are often the best designs.

> requirements can change quickly and drastically

the implication that this threat is not present for production code is completely ridiculous.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#52

Post by OopsCriticality »

geebee wrote: post #38
OopsCriticality wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wrote the majority of the analysis code for one of the chapters of the IPCC 5th Assessment and yet was told my name couldn't be put anywhere as I wasn't a 'scientist'. Can you be more specific about the nature of your contributions? Writing code would seem analogous to performing experiments, which alone is insufficient to warrant authorship (but should get an acknowledgment).

You raise an important question. It is important to detail the actual contribution, since programming may be perceived as purely implementing an idea with no creative input. That said… in my career so far, I don't think I've ever seen a clean example of coding someone else's idea to spec. If you successfully take an idea from concept to working software, or if a research project requires complex software to be writte…

> You raise an important question. It is important to detail the actual contribution, since programming may be perceived as purely implementing an idea with no creative input.

Beyond creative input, there's also the question of liability in case of academic misconduct. I'd question if someone acting in a technician role (say a programming professional) would have a full understanding of the manuscript and so could accept authorship; they may also lack the ability to check the findings of the manuscript which is also problematic.

> If you successfully take an idea from concept to working software, or if a research project requires complex software to be written, I think it is almost inevitable that the software developer will end up making a creative contribution.

I think we need to be careful about how we define creative contribution; there's a line to be drawn somewhere in there between a creative contribution for the sake of the software (i.e., speeding up execution time by 4x for a simulation running on a cluster) versus a creative contribution that enables the research (i.e., a novel real-time optimization algorithm for electrostimulation). The latter certainly warrants authorship, but I don't think the former does.

> I'm also a bit suspicious about the justification that you can't be listed because aren't a "scientist". Of course, I don't know the details, but it seems fishy.

Ditto, which is why I asked. My first thought was that it sounded like scholarly authorship was poorly explained and if so I was hoping to help out with that.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#53

Post by xiaoma »

magicbuzz wrote: post #15

Working in research as a software engineer can be very frustrating. I wrote the majority of the analysis code for one of the chapters of the IPCC 5th Assessment and yet was told my name couldn't be put anywhere as I wasn't a 'scientist'. I also consistently see people who have never written much code put in charge of projects where the majority of the work/research is writing software. These projects end up with no c…

Limited OO use sounds like a very good thing unless you're building a gui.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#54

Post by johansch »

johansch wrote: post #48
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Academia has have their 50 year run with software research and the end result is quite disappointing. You might want to tell that to the students and faculty at MIT, Berkeley and CMU who wrote the papers and much of the software powering your shiny new macbook and iphone.

Most of them were students, not academic researchers . The sole reason they were there was that it was the only way to get to computers. Since you mention MIT: I guess one example is how much effort Marvin Minsky's influence wasted in AI research and how he single-handedly killed more relevant research in that area for decades. What I was trying to get at though is what I have seen in the EU. Basically they don't eve…

I also remember reading about Google's Larry and Sergei being reprimanded or scolded for being too occupied of what would be useful to users, rather than thinking about what might be make a good academic paper. Then they left Stanford.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#55

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Eridrus wrote: post #49
tostitos1979 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Research has RSDEs ... research software design engineers. IBM Research also has a research software engineer position, with its own career progression track. These folks are generally fantastic developers who have been professional software engineers some point in their careers. Moreover, I have never personally seen a case where a research engineer was not put on a paper for being just a coder. It is prob…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that being an RSDE at MSR was still a dead-end position. FWIW product engineers usually get bonuses for patents, so there's the obvious incentive of $5k in your pocket.

If we are talking Redmond, I've known plenty of RSDEs who have been promoted to manage their own groups. They also have the option to transfer back into a product development team, which can be very difficult for us pure researchers.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#56

Post by jdminhbg »

xiaoma wrote: post #53
magicbuzz wrote: post #15

Working in research as a software engineer can be very frustrating. I wrote the majority of the analysis code for one of the chapters of the IPCC 5th Assessment and yet was told my name couldn't be put anywhere as I wasn't a 'scientist'. I also consistently see people who have never written much code put in charge of projects where the majority of the work/research is writing software. These projects end up with no c…

Limited OO use sounds like a very good thing unless you're building a gui.

It's not "limited OO" in the sense of "well-reasoned FP instead," but rather piles of copy/pasted procedural code.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#57

Post by shanemhansen »

johansch wrote: post #50
sien wrote: post #47

Ironically we're all discussing this on a platform created by a research software engineer 25 years ago.

Please expand?

I assume this is a reference to the fact the www was created at CERN. http was written to help scientists share documents.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#58

Post by geebee »

OopsCriticality wrote: post #52
geebee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise an important question. It is important to detail the actual contribution, since programming may be perceived as purely implementing an idea with no creative input. That said… in my career so far, I don't think I've ever seen a clean example of coding someone else's idea to spec. If you successfully take an idea from concept to working software, or if a research project requires complex software to be writte…

> You raise an important question. It is important to detail the actual contribution, since programming may be perceived as purely implementing an idea with no creative input. Beyond creative input, there's also the question of liability in case of academic misconduct. I'd question if someone acting in a technician role (say a programming professional) would have a full understanding of the manuscript and so could ac…

> I think we need to be careful about how we define creative contribution; there's a line to be drawn somewhere in there between a creative contribution for the sake of the software (i.e., speeding up execution time by 4x for a simulation running on a cluster) versus a creative contribution that enables the research (i.e., a novel real-time optimization algorithm for electrostimulation). The latter certainly warrants authorship, but I don't think the former does.

I agree, and the distinction you have made is a big part of why I consider the notion of an academic research programmer to be an intriguing idea. I think you've identified exactly the kind of innovation that isn't really recognized or rewarded through the current academic system. Your "former" example, for example, might still require a high level of innovation (perhaps a novel way of splitting up a calculation so that it can be solved in parallel on a cluster), but this innovation isn't really part of the study itself. How do you recognize this as creative work? And even if it isn't part of the study itself, what if this "solution in parallel" was an essential part of the study (i.e.., solution times without would have been so long that it wouldn't have been possible to refine the model to the point of having usable results?)

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#59

Post by johansch »

shanemhansen wrote: post #57
johansch wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please expand?

I assume this is a reference to the fact the www was created at CERN. http was written to help scientists share documents.

Exactly, it wasn't a research project. An engineer needed to solve a problem. He happened to work in a research institution. Had he been a researcher the web wouldn't have happened.

Re: Why we need to create careers for research software engineers

#60

Post by existencebox »

magicbuzz wrote: post #23
5olidor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this also apply to large industrial labs, e.g. MSR, IBM Research, Google research etc.? Or are there software developers who work together with researchers in those places, perhaps resulting in better quality code?

I would expect that most of the folks working at computer company labs would write their own code and be very knowledgeable in a certain domain.

Having worked as a SWE at both pure academia (as the engineer implementing for researcher-driven projects at a university) and in a similar position at a bigCO, there is certainly more "software chops" at the latter, but the general sentiment of the research types being far more competent at research than at code is not necessarily unfair. However, the "developer presence" in these groups is much higher, (and what is expected of even the pure research folks) so it's not quite as stark as outside industry. Still a different world from the pure SWE teams, however. The intesting thought I'd add to this is that the problems don't always manifest as "bad code". Things like measuring tradeoffs and compromises are not always as well thought out in the research teams. (I'd mete this statement slightly, to say that researchers have very different mental models for what tradeoffs to make in development from someone with a pure developer background, and this is not always bad, just evident.)
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