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Science needs more research software engineers

nature.com

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Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#211

Post by ArtWomb »

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…

The converse is something akin to Tableau, which came out of the graphics department of Stanford and Pat Hanrahan's lab. Tableau was acquired by Salesforce for around $15B. No doubt, proximity to SV was key to their growth. But the original research from 20+ years ago on DataCubes visualization was a product of academia. It just so happened to coincide with our era of "democratizing data science" ;)

Multiscale Visualization Using Data Cubes

https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/pan_zoom/

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#212

Post by dgb23 »

javajosh wrote: post #196
noobermin wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this thread is turning into a yet another complaints about academia thread: One of the serious downsides of working in academia is you are basically doing the industry's work for them for less pay and they will one day turn around, pat you on the back, then sell your work for millions of dollars. It gets worse honestly the closer you are to applied fields. There, you already straddle the line between what your…

The next thought should be: why doesn't neo-liberal capitalism fix this problem? And: is my characterization of the problem correct? Why not start a new firm that better compensates researchers (and tool makers) for their valuable work? It seems like big tech (especially Google, and perhaps Microsoft) comes in from the commercial side and invests in R&D at reasonable rates for just this purpose! But surely if workers…

There are plenty of firms that sell software to academia and many of them make a ton of money. I bet there are great opportunities in that space. I guess the issue is that most business educated/oriented people are both too disjoint from both engineering and science, so competition is rare.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#213

Post by caymanjim »

I had the title "Research Software Engineer" well over 10 years ago, and worked as a research software engineer in another role prior to that with a random title.

Contrary to many of the posts I see here, it was a great job, except for the below-market pay. I felt like I was contributing to something valuable. It beat working on yet another boring commerce website. I had interesting coworkers and worked with interesting technology.

I didn't experience any of the politics around academia. I felt respected by everyone. I don't have a PhD. I don't even have an undergrad degree. I dropped out of highschool, got a GED, and did a couple years of undergrad, got hired by the university, and never finished. No one ever treated me like I was second-class.

The only reason I'm not still working as a RSE is because I took a 50% pay cut when I took the job and was lured away by money later.

I wonder how many of the negative commenters here have any actual experience as or with RSEs.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#214

Post by siva7 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #206
siva7 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seriously? in what kind of alternative reality does academia live to offer 30k?

For context, you have 7 weeks holiday, you can't get fired, your working hours are quite flexible. In France, medical expense, education is free. And outside of Paris and a few other big cities, rents are rather affordable. So all things considered, it's not a bad deal (which is why they do attract good candidates). And a typical SWE position in private sector in France would be $50-60K (of course there's variance th…

that's way to low even for private sector. flexible working hours are pretty much the new standard in SWE so not anymore even an argument

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#215

Post by psyc »

javajosh wrote: post #196
noobermin wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since this thread is turning into a yet another complaints about academia thread: One of the serious downsides of working in academia is you are basically doing the industry's work for them for less pay and they will one day turn around, pat you on the back, then sell your work for millions of dollars. It gets worse honestly the closer you are to applied fields. There, you already straddle the line between what your…

The next thought should be: why doesn't neo-liberal capitalism fix this problem? And: is my characterization of the problem correct? Why not start a new firm that better compensates researchers (and tool makers) for their valuable work? It seems like big tech (especially Google, and perhaps Microsoft) comes in from the commercial side and invests in R&D at reasonable rates for just this purpose! But surely if workers…

I'd guess that the expected commercial value being low would be the norm, and discoveries making millions relatively rare, just as this is in every other context. However, the second half of your second paragraph is where my mind went to first, because what gp says happens does happen, albeit at a normal (low) rate. The motivation of people working in science is different, as it is in say the games business. Game developers have historically been paid lower except at a tiny handful of companies. Not 33 cents on the dollar, but maybe 50 to 70 (bearing in mind that FAANG/unicorn salaries are not the norm either)

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#216

Post by myst1 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #206
siva7 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seriously? in what kind of alternative reality does academia live to offer 30k?

For context, you have 7 weeks holiday, you can't get fired, your working hours are quite flexible. In France, medical expense, education is free. And outside of Paris and a few other big cities, rents are rather affordable. So all things considered, it's not a bad deal (which is why they do attract good candidates). And a typical SWE position in private sector in France would be $50-60K (of course there's variance th…

I've seen people get fired from a academia on several occasions... When they couldn't fire someone they beat them down so regularly and buried them so deep people left or had a mental breakdown.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#217

Post by myst1 »

krageon wrote: post #202
evandijk70 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Netherlands, 30k is the starting salary for a PhD student. 30k for a tenure track position sounds insane to me.

I have spoken to quite a few that made minimum wage (which is not even close to 30k).

In the us, a few years ago, my program offered a stipend of 22,000 usd per year. Provided I taught a few classes, graded homework, tests, etc. While doing research and taking my own classes.

That was very lucky, many programs do not offer stipends and require people to take out loans.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#218

Post by psyc »

DrewADesign wrote: post #168
sbt wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It certainly echoes my experience having just left a professional dev job in academia after an 11 year stretch. Anybody without academic credentials relevant to the subject matter is "the help" no matter how much you contribute, and it's flat-out demoralizing. I worked on a tech-heavy project large enough to get an NYT feature article covering its launch. For it, I collaborated heavily on the service design and logis…

This sort of gatekeeping is a part of academic culture I just don't get

This is just a hypothesis, but I'd predict a high correlation between becoming an academia lifer, and having certain preexisting personality disorders, stemming from having never derived a sense of self worth from anything other than academic achievement since they learned to speak. Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself :)

Similar to the top tier of tech companies being destructive and amoral in their own ways, not only because they're corporations, but also because programmers see technical challenges waiting to be solved like a moth sees a porch light, but see ethical problems dimly. (still probably speaking for myself...)

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#219

Post by myst1 »

konschubert wrote: post #131
sbt wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Are you talking about the letters P, H and D? As in, if you don't have a PhD they don't see you as a peer?

Even if you have a PhD it sucks. Everyone without a PhD is trying to one up you, and everyone with one has invented ten other arbitrary things that ensure you are human trash on arrival.

Also, imagine all the people who failed out of masters or PhD programs who end up in management and are resentful. It's a surprisingly common thing.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#220

Post by joshvm »

Azrael3000 wrote: post #189
joshvm wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah let me be clear. PhD students absolutely should get guidance from experienced engineers (so I was a bit over-zealous with "assist" in my parent post). But this should be more like understanding best practices, and they should feel free to ask questions and figure out how to write better code. There are initiatives to do this called Software Carpentry.[0] However, RSEs should not be writing code for students doin…

Well I think the best way would be for RSEs to maintain a project and PhDs should then contribute to that project via pull requests. RSEs can then point towards proper coding styles, test development, etc. That would ensure that the contributions of the PhDs does not get lost and they learn how to properly contribute to a project.

See my sibling comment on this. I think this is an ideal case for an RSE: if you have a shared codebase that ends up being contributed to by multiple members. That avoids legacy problems where someone contributes, leaves, someone else modifies, none of it is in source control etc. However, this assumes that you have a group that is structured around some common IP or library - and sure, there are lots of places where this applies. This is generally more mature research, not something that a PhD student has just come up with.

There are of course scenarios where someone comes up with some very high impact work, and there's an obvious need to make it robust or user-friendly, spin-out, etc.

It works less well for groups where everyone works on different or loosely related projects. That's not an efficient use of an RSE's time, in my opinion. Though of course you can have a situation where lots of people do random projects using the lab's core code. In both cases, there is a use-case where RSEs embedded in a university can train students on good coding practices.

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