71–79 of 79 posts
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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.
just no.
I think I have this sort of career. I take theoretical paper and turn it into practical implementation. I make money on consulting. Lot of independence and freedom. I dont think it is possible to do such thing in academia. Software guys I know in astronomy are underfunded and on short contracts. Most guys will leave for commercial company before starting a family.
I'm doing the same sort of thing at Google. I've been a software engineer for 13 years or so and I switched over to a research group in 2014. There is definitely a culture difference, even though Google is one of the places which has the least "pure" research. All research teams have software engineers pretty much, and they mostly work with the same codebase that engineers do.
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> 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…
This is so so true (I spent some time working as a post-doc in England). There are tables filled up this very moment with dignified scientists arguing about bikesheds in CRUD applications that wouldn't get three upvotes here on Hacker News. And remember: if you can't open it in MS Excel, that makes it "Big Data"!
All joking aside though, what universities are doing with their postdocs is abusive and immoral and they're going to regret killing the golden goose when they've squandered all the prestige in these positions.
Dr. Pamela Gay wrote an article about the difficult state of non-tenure jobs in research and academia: http://www.starstryder.com/2015/11/12/dreaming-of-success-in... It's the same problem for software devs, postdocs, research assistants, adjunct professors - basically everyone except tenured university professors. We're not rewarding the right things.
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> 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…
As geebee pointed out, current practice may not be enough to acknowledge the role of technicians, core facilities, etc. in research and the issue is ripe for discussion. Nevertheless, I don't think that changes the meaning of scholarly authorship.
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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.
There are plenty of Principal RSDEs and some become Managers of technical leaders of teams, which sometimes even include researchers.
But of course, the track is not as clear and common as for plain Researcher or SDE (in a product team).
PS: As far as I know, the patent bonus are there for all (though I can't comment on values).
I think I have this sort of career. I take theoretical paper and turn it into practical implementation. I make money on consulting. Lot of independence and freedom. I dont think it is possible to do such thing in academia. Software guys I know in astronomy are underfunded and on short contracts. Most guys will leave for commercial company before starting a family.
Can you give some details on what you do? I think it's pretty interesting (and rare) that you can make consulting money by taking a paper and turning it into an implementation. What field are you in, who do you work with, etc.? Are you independent? I'm doing the same sort of thing at Google. I've been a software engineer for 13 years or so and I switched over to a research group in 2014. There is definitely a culture…
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There are no promotions between entry-level and lead dev? I don't know that I'd call it a reasonable career ladder if the second rung is 15 years away.
Are regular promotions that important? As long as I get keep getting to do interesting work and keep getting reasonable raises I'm quite happy with my job title not changing more than once a decade.