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Science needs more research software engineers

nature.com

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Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#241

Post by xmzx »

sea-shunned wrote: post #230
exdsq wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't completely true. My wife is a postdoc at a medical lab at Stanford and there's a big drive to push good software practices - containerisation, tests, documentation, etc... and a good friend who's a postdoc in medical imaging at Oxford runs training courses for their labs software (along with following all standard engineering practices you'd see at a company). This will be subjective of where you're workin…

I'll agree that there is increasing emphasis on reproducibility and _useable_ software in academia. Writing documentation, unit tests etc. is still not really rewarded properly, but at least within the current paradigm such efforts are often rewarded with more users (and therefore citations) which is rewarded. Soon, hopefully, it'll be recognised more directly. Also, I'm currently a postdoc in medical imaging at UCL,…

Sounds exactly like industry.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#242

Post by fburnaby »

travisgriggs wrote: post #20
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."

This last point, and replies to this all seem to talk about the research industry. But it has been my experience that this same dynamic of being “less than” exists in any industry that is not primarily software. I am a mechanical engineer by degree, but a software engineer by 30 years of practice. That has allowed me to thrice straddle the divide where I worked on software that was not just software for softwares sak…

I believe this has less to do with software in particular and just generally reflects the typical dynamics of the line/staff distinction.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_and_line

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#243

Post by aragilar »

euroderf wrote: post #186
epse wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, but at least some experience in academia is terribly helpful, speaking from experience. There's a lot of particuliarities in funding, organisation, terminology, special stacks, ... You can certainly learn them "on the job", but if you already know them, even better

Just wondering then, how much of that kind of knowledge is portable among academic research environments, and how much is peculiar to every individual environment ? Is there something that is dying to be written up for people entering the field ?

Different aspects will be differently portable (e.g. funding will region specific, modulo field specific schemes).

Having a PhD (in a relevant field) gives you domain knowledge as well as knowing where the pitfalls are, and a PhD in general will mean you're at least familiar with what questions to ask/who to ask those questions.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#244

Post by thirtyfivecent »

pdimitar wrote: post #170

Responding to title only, and a little rant: No, scientists need to stop hand-waving away everything that's not their area as "trivial and not worth talking about" because yeah, I've heard that exact line from three separate individuals. When I shrugged it off and still produced tools for them that shaved off a literal 1-2h out of their day and giving them more time to do the actually creative things... they were so…

No post body was provided.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#245

Post by microtonal »

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).

The situation is a bit weird in The Netherlands. Some PhD students are paid employees (AiO), their gross salary is ~31000 to 40000 Euro per year (I think this is excluding vacation money, but including 13th month).

Then there are PhDs that get a scholarship (bursaal), that is only around 24000-25000 gross per year.

Not too long ago, there were only employee PhDs, but some universities really love the scholarship system, because they have to pay less tax, so it's a lot cheaper for the universities.

My wife had a PhD scholarship in NL and it really had some large negative effects after finishing her PhD:

- She contributed 4 years less into a pension fund, since bursary PhDs do not build up pension outside the state pension;

- In her next academic position, they didn't consider her four years of PhD work as working experience, while they did do that for me as an employee PhD. So, she was set back 4 years in salary growth.

- She finished her PhD in August and started a full time job after her PhD. Because she had an income that went over some threshold, she had to pay the taxes that the university dodged by using the scholarship system. She worked the rest of the year at a loss (the taxes were higher than the income from September-December).

The worst part of it is that many foreign PhD students do not realize that there is a two-class system.

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#246

Post by haihaibye »

skohan wrote: post #135

I would actually love to contribute to scientific research. I work in industry, which is lucrative and impactful but not that satisfying, and I work on pet projects which are satisfying but not that impactful. I would happily contribute some of my time to scientific projects which are legitimately impactful and also challenging.

What areas of science are you interested in, and what languages/skillsets do you have?

Maybe I can steer you towards some Github repos

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#247

Post by haihaibye »

Nursie wrote: post #17

The other side of "We need software engineers in research" is surely the botched covid model from Imperial College way back at the beginning of the pandemic. The group that produced it had the audacity to complain that the software industry didn't make C++ foolproof enough, and it was our fault that the modelling was wrong. This shows the attitude that some folks in these places have - what you do is easy, and rather…

I skimmed that code at the start of the pandemic and it was pretty tragic, eg how accurate could deaths be when there were no nursing homes in their models?

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#248

Post by pdimitar »

the_only_law wrote: post #226
pdimitar wrote: post #170

Responding to title only, and a little rant: No, scientists need to stop hand-waving away everything that's not their area as "trivial and not worth talking about" because yeah, I've heard that exact line from three separate individuals. When I shrugged it off and still produced tools for them that shaved off a literal 1-2h out of their day and giving them more time to do the actually creative things... they were so…

> A lot of scientists become severely tunnel-visioned, arrogant, conservative, downright disrespectful, and very hard to work with. Tbf I can replace scientist with developer and it’s hold just as true.

And you would be correct (and I am saying this as a programmer). Truth is, it's extremely easy for us the Homo Sapiens to become very set in our ways. :|

I'm 42 and I've had colleagues at 28 year old that already act like they belong to a council of elders. Made me super sad... they are way too young for that!

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#249

Post by fennecfoxen »

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…

> The next thought should be: why doesn't neo-liberal capitalism fix this problem?

You are the vehicle by which neo-liberal capitalism fixes the problem. By leaving academia to work for a firm directly, you are responding to a price signal sent by the industry, relaying that price signal to the academic labs.

You might object, this is slower than most price signals! That's because the university environment is somewhat insulated from the ordinary pressures of capitalism (and thus better able to exploit young research programmers).

Re: Science needs more research software engineers

#250

Post by Frost1x »

jltsiren wrote: post #72
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."

While the academia has a lot of issues, software engineers should also adjust their expectations. First, if you choose to work for a non-profit, you should expect a huge pay cut. That's the way the society works. Or actually it's the opposite. If you work in a for-profit role, the society allows your employer to keep most of the value you create. If you create a lot of value, that gives you the leverage to negotiate…

>First, if you choose to work for a non-profit, you should expect a huge pay cut.

It may be the culture in some ecosystems but it's entirely false. A nonprofit can pay competitively with organizations of its size. I've worked at nonprofits and I've seen this line towed far too many times as an excuse to lower labor costs for people producing value for the organization. If your nonprofit is service oriented in anyway and requires people, appropriately investing in those people through their compensation and WLB is an appropriate investment.

In theory, a nonprofit should be able to outperform and outpay a for-profit entity of the same size, largely because there shouldn't be an expectation of the organization to cut a big slice out to investors but instead to invest back into itself. This could mean increased hiring, grabbing top talent, investing back in a cause and so on.

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