What is a Research Software Engineer?
What is a Research Software Engineer (RSE)? Too many things to define, you can find these definitions elsewhere. Maybe the question you would like to know is How do I get value from Research Engineers like Aalto Scientific Computing does? - that’s what we’ll try to answer here. Through that, we may learn a functional definition.
This page is written from the perspective of computational science - similar messages may apply to other fields. Note that computing and AI is in every field now.
University roles
When someone wants Research Engineers, it’s probably because they see something that is missing in the current academic system. Thus, to understand what we want, we need to understand the system. Below is rkdarst’s current mental model:
Academics are who we usually consider researchers. They do research, and are promoted based on articles published and citations received from other academics. Citations from academics tend to focus on innovation and novelness, so that’s what decides career paths.
Research Engineers (REs) focus on the practice and “structural integrity” of the research: the tools, the reproducibility, and more. They are more concerned with the work being done well, than pure novelness and citations. [0]
Research Software Engineers (RSEs) are a subset of Research Engineers, and I feel that the “software” is the least significant part there. Software is important, but so is data, computing, reproducibility, etc.
Particular examples of things that Research Engineers are good at include: Reproduciblity, maintaining software and data across academic generations, Open Science, programming, using large computer clusters, data security, and research ethics processes.
Researchers, in my mind, cover both of the above (and more). Industrial research teams would have both of the above and possibly even more different roles all working together on their problems. In universities, we tend to only consider the academics to researchers.
So what’s a Research Engineer? To me, it’s defined mostly in terms of what is missing from the typical academic career path (of undergraduate → junior researcher → senior researcher). At all levels, I’ve seen research engineering under-valued and under-taught (not necessarily because it’s not wanted, but because it’s not novel science and there’s no time). Senior researchers (group leaders) often see the value, but don’t have the time (or sometimes ability) to train and supervise research engineers well.
How Aalto RSE filled the gap
Years before Aalto RSE started (~2017-2018), I saw a need for more basic skills (for example: version control to manage code) and worked to promote them in undergraduate programs. This basically didn’t work, because they were seen as not scientific thus not something to be taught in academic courses (and if they were thought, the courses would be full of people looking for easy ECTS). While there certainly are study programs in software and software engineering, these are their own thing, and not part of data science, or other fields that need computation. Software engineering programs also aren’t adapted for the unpredictibility of research.
This was the prompting to start Aalto Research Software Engineers - if we can’t teach people skills in study programs, we have to support them when they become researchers (and teach it via practical mentoring). This has worked out very well, as you can see by our rapid expansion and heavy usage.
Aalto RSE is essentially the collaborator our research groups need to do their top-level work. This system works very well, but are there other options?
How to get research engineering competence in universities?
The above leads to various ideas. Take your pick for what angle you want to approach the problem:
Better RE teaching in undergraduate programs:
As part of existing programs (is there time to teach this? Is there desire? On the other hand, RE skills are great for employment prospects)
As dedicated majors? (Some people are trying to make dedicated RSE study programs at different universities, and there is a value there. But if you ask me the best value is learning RE along with academic research in a different field)
Better RE teaching in graduate programs:
Many of the same things as above apply here, mainly the lack of time, and the necessity to spend time on novel research, not learning existing best practices.
Nurture REs within existing research groups:
Nothing stops group leaders from hiring students and postdocs who have chosen to focus on research engineering. This often happens when supervisors hire technical postdocs to manage the RE side of things. (The question is: can they be supervised and mentored well by academic supervisors, if they need to be home-grown?)
If group leaders hire good candidates, Aalto RSE can help mentor them. See the companion blog post RSE work rotations for one idea.
Recruit REs as professor-level group leaders” similar to how senior academics are recruited:
These people would focus on collaborating with others to make projects possible.
The university systems don’t seem set up to value these people, thus they don’t appear among the ranks. They could appear if they spent their careers chasing academic citations, but then would they be able to spend enough time on research engineering?
I think this is what some people mean when they say they want a RSE career path: a way to recruit senior academics who lead research engineering groups. I think the idea is good but it’s not how universities are set up, so it’s a long way off. The values systems may not even match up.
Create parallel structures that support research engineering
That is what Aalto RSE has done. We are researchers, but we make new research possible by collaborating with academics, instead of trying to publish by ourselves. We are part of the services of the School of Science.
We also take it upon ourselves to do teaching and mentoring via co-working for all types of researchers (aspiring academic or research engineer). We can fill in the technical mentoring that’s missing by many supervisors.
You can read about our history in more detail.
Getting your own research engineers
I’ve seen many people interested in gaining research engineering competence for their organization. You need to develop an environment where they fill in the gaps you need.
Junior academics: encourage them to explore their technical skills. Show that there is value in this, even if it reduces the number of publications. Encourage them to get training (for example the Aalto RSE training). Give them time, encouragement, and career prospects to reach beyond the focus on papers.
Other support staff at universities and other organizations: don’t view them as limited-purpose supporters of an {infrastructure, service, process}. View them as supporters of research: let them holistically support research projects from many angles at once, rather than only in narrow silos with strict project reporting requirements.
You can hire dedicated staff to be REs, but it’s important that they are integrated into the local research environment. Most of our hires have been local staff who have grown into a new role, and I think this is how it should be.
Any of the above, especially the first two, require time being made available for RE work and a clear vision and network. Aalto RSE (with the help of others in Finland) is planning on making a networking and onboarding program for new research engineers who wish to adopt this vision.
Summary
If you read this far, you probably see the value in research engineers and want them yourself. Just hiring someone, or changing someone’s job to “RSE”, won’t magically solve the problem you need. It’s a whole mindset shift towards a multi-disciplinary research team.
What’s the right level of research engineers, permanent and experienced or junior and learning? Probably a bit of both.
Footnotes