I think the problem is not the lack of "career path" or a title, but that the is little credit given to code. (To the point, that usually no public code is bein

I think the problem is not the lack of "career path" or a title, but that the is little credit given to code. (To the point, that usually no public code is being shared, even if the publication bases on it!) Why? - sharing code may mean risk of being scooped (instead of milking the same code for years), - cleaning up code takes time, which can be used for writing another publications. In short, as long as publications (i.e. papers accepted to prestigious journals or conferences) are the only credit in academia, quality programming is lost. See my longer answer: http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/23238/49 http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/23238/49