4 ms·

It's already been said several times over but I'm going to throw it out anyway. I'd love to work at a university as a research software engineer. I find things

It's already been said several times over but I'm going to throw it out anyway. I'd love to work at a university as a research software engineer. I find things like bioinformatics fascinating and even interviewed at a research university on the east coast. But, you will get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than you would doing almost anything else, have zero autonomy, and get no respect. Those 3 things are basically what most people look for in a job.

philomath_mn 4y ago
> Those 3 thing are basically what most people look for in a job. When you put it that way, it makes it so clear why nobody wants to sign up (BTW I'm the same way, would love to work on research, especially if it is something which could improve people's lives, but I'd have a hard time switching for these reasons)
Gatsky 4y ago
The pay and autonomy will never improve, I can tell you that now. That’s the reality of the current system.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  I’m certain the respect will not improve either. There may be steps made to improve it but they won’t stick.
david_l_lin 4y ago
>you will get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than you would doing almost anything else Definitely true. >have zero autonomy Might be true? But in the right research group, this is definitely not true. I actually find that I had far more autonomy in academia than in industry. There are far fewer deadlines, less time pressure, and more curiosity-driven projects that are entirely owned by you. >and get no respect Might be true, but I find a lot of people in industry feel they get no respect as well. As an academic, I actually found that I respected academics more than I did people in industry. Though this is entirely anecdotal. I was an academic until my 30s before going to industry, and actually find that the autonomy is the number one reason people like academia. YOU drive the projects because only YOU know the research that deeply. YOU get to be at the forefront, and YOU know things nobody else might ever know, until you get to share them through publications and presentations. Academic projects have essentially no deadline (projects are on multi-year long timescales rather than quarters or months in industry).
suslik 4y ago
You can do all type of flavour of bioinformatics in industry as well; in fact, the profession is so undersaturated it is really easy for a qualified individual to lend a nice R&D position in big or small pharma or biotech.
cycomanic 4y ago
> But, you will get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than you would doing almost anything else Yes definitely true, a junior software engineer in industry earns about as much as a Professor in academia. How would you justify such a salary at the university? > have zero autonomy, I've written that before. I would argue it's the complete opposite, autonomy is the one big advantage of academia. If you are a software engineer you likely have even more autonomy than most others, because your work is not directly linked to conference/grant deadlines etc. typically you would be given very rough guidelines on what you should try to achieve and then left to your own devices for long periods of time. Most PIs would neither have the time or expertise to micromanage a software engineer. > and get no respect. Again not my experience at all. I know that in my area people would respect a software engineer. I know when my partner was working as a research assistant in a medical lab, I wrote a small script to process some huge spreadsheet that they always processed by hand (work that took sometimes several weeks). They treated me like a god and even wanted to include me on the paper. The thing to remember though is you will not be considered a researcher, so likely not get grant funding and your job progression would always be in more technical roles, not in the academic track. I still don't see any difference in respect.
- YetAnotherNick 4y ago
  >> and get no respect. > not my experience at all Respect could mean different things to different people, but I find the things you wrote not to be very respectful, but being nice in my evaluation. I have worked in a research lab. While the folks I worked with respected my work, what I would actually consider respectful is including me in the design of the work, not giving me my part of work after they designed the thing they want to work on. And while most job industry is not good in this respect, working in research lab is worse than that. Almost all research labs treats SWE like cost center[0]. [0]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    > Respect could mean different things to different people, but I find the things you wrote not to be very respectful, but being nice in my evaluation. > I have worked in a research lab. While the folks I worked with respected my work, what I would actually consider respectful is including me in the design of the work, not giving me my part of work after they designed the thing they want to work on. And while most job industry is not good in this respect, working in research lab is worse than that. Almost all research labs treats SWE like cost center[0]. I don't quite understand your point, do you mean that you as an SRE want to be involved in the grant being written? That might be appropriate if the grant is directly on the topic of software, but completely inappropriate if the SRE writes the labautomation software to be used in the grant. So if the researcher asks you to write a GUI to some lab-instrument for example is that being disrespectful? Regarding your citation, I also don't get it. The text says that MBAs consider SWEs as cost centers, so that implies it's worse in industry (there's very few MBAs running research labs). I can also tell you that academics are largely considered cost centres by university admin.

philomath_mn 4y ago

> Those 3 thing are basically what most people look for in a job. When you put it that way, it makes it so clear why nobody wants to sign up (BTW I'm the same way, would love to work on research, especially if it is something which could improve people's lives, but I'd have a hard time switching for these reasons)

Gatsky 4y ago

The pay and autonomy will never improve, I can tell you that now. That’s the reality of the current system.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
I’m certain the respect will not improve either. There may be steps made to improve it but they won’t stick.

david_l_lin 4y ago

>you will get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than you would doing almost anything else Definitely true. >have zero autonomy Might be true? But in the right research group, this is definitely not true. I actually find that I had far more autonomy in academia than in industry. There are far fewer deadlines, less time pressure, and more curiosity-driven projects that are entirely owned by you. >and get no respect Might be true, but I find a lot of people in industry feel they get no respect as well. As an academic, I actually found that I respected academics more than I did people in industry. Though this is entirely anecdotal. I was an academic until my 30s before going to industry, and actually find that the autonomy is the number one reason people like academia. YOU drive the projects because only YOU know the research that deeply. YOU get to be at the forefront, and YOU know things nobody else might ever know, until you get to share them through publications and presentations. Academic projects have essentially no deadline (projects are on multi-year long timescales rather than quarters or months in industry).

suslik 4y ago

You can do all type of flavour of bioinformatics in industry as well; in fact, the profession is so undersaturated it is really easy for a qualified individual to lend a nice R&D position in big or small pharma or biotech.

cycomanic 4y ago

> But, you will get paid SIGNIFICANTLY less than you would doing almost anything else Yes definitely true, a junior software engineer in industry earns about as much as a Professor in academia. How would you justify such a salary at the university? > have zero autonomy, I've written that before. I would argue it's the complete opposite, autonomy is the one big advantage of academia. If you are a software engineer you likely have even more autonomy than most others, because your work is not directly linked to conference/grant deadlines etc. typically you would be given very rough guidelines on what you should try to achieve and then left to your own devices for long periods of time. Most PIs would neither have the time or expertise to micromanage a software engineer. > and get no respect. Again not my experience at all. I know that in my area people would respect a software engineer. I know when my partner was working as a research assistant in a medical lab, I wrote a small script to process some huge spreadsheet that they always processed by hand (work that took sometimes several weeks). They treated me like a god and even wanted to include me on the paper. The thing to remember though is you will not be considered a researcher, so likely not get grant funding and your job progression would always be in more technical roles, not in the academic track. I still don't see any difference in respect.

YetAnotherNick 4y ago
>> and get no respect. > not my experience at all Respect could mean different things to different people, but I find the things you wrote not to be very respectful, but being nice in my evaluation. I have worked in a research lab. While the folks I worked with respected my work, what I would actually consider respectful is including me in the design of the work, not giving me my part of work after they designed the thing they want to work on. And while most job industry is not good in this respect, working in research lab is worse than that. Almost all research labs treats SWE like cost center[0]. [0]: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
- cycomanic 4y ago
  > Respect could mean different things to different people, but I find the things you wrote not to be very respectful, but being nice in my evaluation. > I have worked in a research lab. While the folks I worked with respected my work, what I would actually consider respectful is including me in the design of the work, not giving me my part of work after they designed the thing they want to work on. And while most job industry is not good in this respect, working in research lab is worse than that. Almost all research labs treats SWE like cost center[0]. I don't quite understand your point, do you mean that you as an SRE want to be involved in the grant being written? That might be appropriate if the grant is directly on the topic of software, but completely inappropriate if the SRE writes the labautomation software to be used in the grant. So if the researcher asks you to write a GUI to some lab-instrument for example is that being disrespectful? Regarding your citation, I also don't get it. The text says that MBAs consider SWEs as cost centers, so that implies it's worse in industry (there's very few MBAs running research labs). I can also tell you that academics are largely considered cost centres by university admin.