Science needs more research software engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#121

Post by epgui » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:42 AM UTC

robbomacrae wrote: post #94

maxwell86 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even if you have a PhD many will see you as "less than." Inside academia and outside of it. Inside academia you are not on a tenure track or similar, and will have to put up with a lot. Outside academia, your peers will be making 3x or more than you, working less hours, with less stress, etc. The reason RSE's jobs are hard to fill and often aren't even opened is that they don't make sense. If you are good enough fo…

I'm curious which company pays a RS 10x more than a SE/RSE. I've found its usually SE/RSE's that make a bit more than RS's but I've never seen an RSE comp significantly outweigh an SE unless its in ML/Crypto. On that note I wish levels.fyi had RS and RSE roles...

10x is possible, but maybe 3-5x is more realistic (even for non-FAANG).

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#122

Post by adw » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:43 AM UTC

robbomacrae wrote: post #94

maxwell86 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even if you have a PhD many will see you as "less than." Inside academia and outside of it. Inside academia you are not on a tenure track or similar, and will have to put up with a lot. Outside academia, your peers will be making 3x or more than you, working less hours, with less stress, etc. The reason RSE's jobs are hard to fill and often aren't even opened is that they don't make sense. If you are good enough fo…

I'm curious which company pays a RS 10x more than a SE/RSE. I've found its usually SE/RSE's that make a bit more than RS's but I've never seen an RSE comp significantly outweigh an SE unless its in ML/Crypto. On that note I wish levels.fyi had RS and RSE roles...

10x more than academia. I’m a PhD in mineral physics turned Big Four MLE via startups and I earn about 10x what I would be on if I had stayed on the academic track.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#123

Post by soco » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:43 AM UTC

Azrael3000 wrote: post #54

ethanwillis wrote: post #2

Well, then science needs to do more to create an environment where software engineers would want to be an RSE. From my experience "science" does not appreciate RSEs, the compensation is bad, the freedom is bad, and you get all of the big company bureaucracy from the University. It's just a bad environment and to top it off, even if you have a PhD many will see you as "less than."

There is simply no incentive for science to do proper software engineering. It does not directly produce papers or money, so nobody does it. I've seen it several times in my own career in several countries. PhDs having their own version of the code, incompatible with the one of the Postdoc sitting opposite of them. Each slaving away at their niche project but nobody there to bring it all together. This particular uni…

I'd say it depends a lot on the environment you'd be landing. I was hired to cleanup some clean room software and boy did it need cleanup. Simply by implementing some best practices and pretty much all what today goes as devops (this was 15 years ago in Switzerland) the thing got so speedy that a company got interested in buying it, so my contract was extended to add the final perks to close that sale. I refused the offer to join the buyer company and that was it for me. Ah and my name landed second on a paper, the only non-PhD on the list. All in all it was an exciting stunt while the pay was in line with what others said - 30% under the market average (they were even surprised why I wanted it).

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#124

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:45 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#125

Post by cycomanic » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:50 AM UTC

tgbugs wrote: post #118

For this to work academic science would have to start paying significantly more, which many labs simply cannot do, and other labs will refuse to do. My PI flat out said when we were trying to hire a python developer that they simply could not be paid 2x more than anyone else because it would cause major issues with team cohesion. 2x is the bare minimum to even get close to market rate for a full time developer who wo…

Yes I don't understand the complaints about the salary a software engineer would be paid in academia. A software engineer straight out of undergraduate, typically earns as much (and often more) than a full professor at the university, who is >20 years after their undergraduate. Should they pay the software engineer more than everyone else, even though they don't even work on the core mission (i.e. the science)? What is even more ironic is that this comes from the same crowd who complains about high taxes, well research is primarily paid from tax money (private foundations/donations are a minuscule part of overall research funding), so the money to pay the software engineers would need to come from taxes.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#126

Post by sbt » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:51 AM UTC

throwmamatrain wrote: post #60

This looks great, and I would have loved to see this when I was in the lab. When the software industry says to you: "We will nearly triple your salary, you don't have to work weekends, and you also don't have to feed the mice on a Sunday night." You will 100% take this deal. I was a 10yr+ academic tool maker in biochemistry, built cutting edge microscopes, hardware, and image analysis software. My lab was successful…

> You don't have enough letters after your name to matter, and you will likely be a pet instead of a peer.

This is an underrated point. This is the case for programmers in finance as well, and requires a hefty salary premium to put up with.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#127

Post by cozzyd » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:52 AM UTC

pyb wrote: post #117

kergonath wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Considering how much time we spend developing and using the damn things, we’ll call them the way we like, thank you very much. We don’t really need condescending software types to just come and explain to us how we’re saying it wrong. That is particularly rich, considering the tendency of CS people to cargo cult and borrow physical terms without understanding them.

Always annoying to hear machine learning people speak of "tensors"...

I'm still waiting for std::pseudovector

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#128

Post by cycomanic » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:55 AM UTC

xroja wrote: post #23

I've worked at a top research university for the past 15 years as a research software engineer. Many of these comments have some truth but a lot are definitely not universally true. Poor compensation: Yup, I'll cop to that. I could be making way more in "industry" but I make enough to live and I don't build ad-ware and do take pride in my work. Being a PhD but little respect: I actually have the opposite experience.…

I was also very surprised by the micromanagement comments. I have seen much more the opposite end of things (in particular with PhD students), which is not enough management guidance. I know that none of the academics I know would have time (and interest) to micromanage their PhD students, let alone a software engineer working on some software for the group.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#129

Post by jacek » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:56 AM UTC

I used to work as a research software engineer in life sciences and I absolutely loved it. Jobs at universities allowed me to learn and experiment. However, universities cannot compete with industry when it comes to salaries.

For example, in Germany where I now live, all public universities (and almost all prestigious schools that do high-profile research are public) have strict salary rules. You can find tables (like this one [1]), according to which your pay is determined. It depends on the job, land (state), degree, and years worked. While this kind of money allows comfortable life (or at least did before the inflation hit hard), industry offers at least 30% more (based on my perception).

[1] https://www.jobs-beim-staat.de/tarif/tv-l_e13

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#130

Post by suslik » Wed, Jun 01, 2022, 7:57 AM UTC

toma_caliente wrote: post #9

It's already been said several times over but I'm going to throw it out anyway. I'd love to work at a university as a research software engineer. I find things like bioinformatics fascinating and even interviewed at a research university on the east coast. But, you will get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than you would doing almost anything else, have zero autonomy, and get no respect. Those 3 things are basically what most…

You can do all type of flavour of bioinformatics in industry as well; in fact, the profession is so undersaturated it is really easy for a qualified individual to lend a nice R&D position in big or small pharma or biotech.