No, your job is to contribute to the science of biology (or whatever). If you can have a large impact building specialist tools, that's a legitimate scientific

No, your job is to contribute to the science of biology (or whatever). If you can have a large impact building specialist tools, that's a legitimate scientific contribution. This is commonplace in e.g. astronomy, where a PhD or postdoc could be part of a team building an instrument. The student is long graduated before the thing gets first light, so doesn't directly discover a damn thing about galaxies or whatever, but their instrument is a fine contribution. Science software is the telescope of tomorrow. (And today, but it doesn't scan so nicely.) My bona fides: I helped create a widely-used software system in my field, and have received reasonable credit for it as a scientific contribution.