>Moreover, since I have no university affiliation, it seems like these groups are not particularly motivated to help me bridge that gap; I have not received muc

>Moreover, since I have no university affiliation, it seems like these groups are not particularly motivated to help me bridge that gap; I have not received much in the way of advice in terms of getting up to speed. Could bringing your software engineering skills to these groups be your way in? Specifically, developing software for them, automating, version control, experiment tracking, environment setting, reducing the "I lost a month worth of work because I spilled coffee on my computer/double clicked on an article with .exe extension" type of issues many people in academia encounter. I believe that there's a quantum leap in research that could be achieved just by using version control, let alone having someone like you on the team. In other words, reduce their toil and overhead and accelerate their research. Once you're really useful and bringing value, the conversation changes. You can therefore leverage your existing skillset.