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Science needs more research software engineers

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Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#231

Post by msolo »

I'm a Research Software Engineer with a PhD working in Harvard/MIT area for > 5 years. I skipped doing a postdoc and have been part several high-profile academic projects in genomics. Overall I've loved the experience and can be a great move for certain people.

A major pain point in RSE is building and sustaining larger software teams around a a single, focused long-term project with ~6-8 RSEs working together. Even the most well-funded and successful academic labs have a limit to what how much RSE effort they can support.

We need new funding models where engineering-focused leaders can muster sufficient resources (autonomously) to build great software teams that maintain high quality software in the long run. Focused Research Organizations (FROs) seem like an interesting new idea (https://www.dayoneproject.org/ideas/focused-research-organiz...).

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#232

Post by 11101010001100 »

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'm aware of several academics that are banking 1M+ annual providing consulting services.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#233

Post by myst1 »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #58
bmitc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly cool stuff but out of the question due to location. I've worked for or met with people from similar size (at least in ambition) projects. It's a tough world to break into and especially difficult to bring a different outlook to.

Have you considered US's national labs if you are in the US?

Hard to get into, have to move to one of five places, usually requires security clearances (huge ordeal), extremely clean lifestyle, if your PI is evil expect zero protection, post doc can be considered entry level qualifications, can be asked to work 7 days a week. Ultimately, usually still pays less than entry level software positions offering full time remote work...

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#234

Post by kongolongo »

noobermin wrote: post #174
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…

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…

I think this is only a half-truth. There certainly are examples of academic research being translated into lucrative products by industry (there are even prominent examples in software/systems engineering) but I think that many times the translation of academic research into a useable product is also a massive endeavor that deserves recognition in its own right.

I see this scenario described in medical research all the time with people saying that industry just leeches off of academic research and what people leave out conveniently is the vast amounts of money and research that goes into translating research into a real drug (billions spent on clinical trials to meet regulation, millions to billions spent on scaling manufacturing and synthesis of the drug to industrial volumes, drug delivery like pill design or injection methods)

Additionally many industries also do have well-paid research positions that "move the needle" on science and basic research. While they're more targeted at producing and supporting products instead of full liberty to exploring just for the sake of knowledge, it's not like there is a complete black and white poorly compensated academic research vs industry.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#235

Post by throwmamatrain »

frozenport wrote: post #76
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…

What's Nico Stuurman up to these days? https://valelab.ucsf.edu/nico_stuurman/

Ah, the uManager guys! Great software, sits on top of ImageJ (open source image analysis).

Our software was a custom C+Win32 app that was ported from CodeWarrior on MacOS 7/8. Windows timers were so crap that I ended up using Ryan Geiss' timer from Milkdrop: http://www.geisswerks.com/ryan/FAQS/timing.html

Yes, that Ryan Geiss, the Winamp one. He now works for Nvidia I think.

Our machines were bristling with serial ports, driving high speed filter wheels, lasers of every color we could get our hands on, special shutters coated with teflon, fast expensive cameras, and more! Their work is very much in my old field, I was in bioenergetics, specifically mitochondria and their dysfunction.

Thanks for the link down memory lane!

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#236

Post by PainfullyNormal »

ergl wrote: post #108
PainfullyNormal wrote: post #13

Where do you find these jobs? And are they only available at Universities? I'd be happy to take the pay cut to work on something that contributes more to society than getting people to click on ads, but not at a college or university.

You might be able to find research institutes or national labs (I'm a research engineer at one of these). If you're in Europe, something like the Max Planck Institute might fit the bill. Aside, can I ask why you don't want to work at a college or university?

No post body was provided.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#237

Post by myst1 »

willis936 wrote: post #177
rob_c wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least in bioscience... BINGO! that field is notoriously horrible and interacts extremely badly with a 'when not discovered here, not important' syndrome. Biology is brutal toward bio-physicists, mathematicians as well as people who code who they are forced to work with rather than seek out to help them. I still hold up as an example nonsense discussions around p-values in bio vs actual work going on in statistic…

The reproducabilty crisis in chemistry is just as bad, if not worse, than biology. Anyone with a pen can reproduce a math proof. If you work on a big project (physics experiment) where every paper has a dozen eyes on it you can't slip crap work by your peers because that's their livelihood on the line. In between you have bio/chem fields where each project is too expensive to trivially reproduce but still small enoug…

Most of the reproducibility issues in chemistry happen in biochem in my experience(meanwhile it gets the most funding). That said, synthetic chemistry is also a problem area. Usually in synthetic chemistry it's not that the work can't be entirely reproduced, but rather that yields are fudged. That's mostly because PIs say "you can't graduate until this reaction yields 99%.". So after someone has written four papers, taught classes at minimum wage for 7 years, they fudge a 95% to a 99%. It's not okay, but neither is the way academia is structured. Super glad my discipline was elsewhere, but I saw colleagues suffer from this stuff...

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#238

Post by microtonal »

maccard wrote: post #193
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.

In Ireland PhD stipends are closer to 13-17k. It's not a perfect comparison because the PhD stipends are tax free, so your comparative salary would be in the 17-20k mark. That said, Postdoc research positions are much closer to 40k than 30k.

That's still pretty miserable. In Germany, an assistent professor or postdoc makes 60k Euro after a few years, even when they are in the pay scale that only requires a master's degree (TVL-13).

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#239

Post by myst1 »

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…

One could argue that bad software engineering practices are rewarded by academia. If no one can follow your work you drive away competition so why write comments. If you regularly refactor your work no one can use your API but you. Not unit testing ensures that code is cryptic, and people will have a hard time refuting your claims due to errors. The list goes on and on.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#240

Post by aragilar »

itsmeacupoftea wrote: post #51

I can only speak for how it appears in my country (Australia), but it seems like university academic staffing models in general are broken. I have 15+ years experience in service providers in Cybersecurity and SE roles. I have 2 Masters degrees with GPA7/HD averages, and love to teach. There is nothing I'd love more than to teach university level topics with a primary teaching focus, and research as a secondary. It's…

It comes down to teaching not bringing in money—enrolments (either domestic via the government, or paying international students) and grants bring in money (those requirements are basically "can bring in grants/other funding"). Even with ongoing positions, things like COVID (or even a change of focus) can cause the positions to end (and the ability to bring in grants would play a key roll in who stays and who goes). Any substantial change in the model is a matter for government, not the unis.
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