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Much of this is equally applicable to other fields, but I very much disagree with point 2. Every lab should have one or more programmers, people who are profess

by roel_v 11y ago

Much of this is equally applicable to other fields, but I very much disagree with point 2. Every lab should have one or more programmers, people who are professionals at writing software, and who guide researchers in their software development. For both efficiency and accuracy reasons. But of course a software developer at a university is, at best, a 'lab assistant', but more likely regarded to be on the same level as the janitor (both in respect and in pay). With the result being thousands upon thousands of shitty programs you wouldn't wish work on to your worst enemy. But hey, cool with me, I carved out a consulting niche in cleaning up such messes in exactly that environment. But man could a lot of money be saved, and a lot of much better work be done, if only researchers (and the hierarchy above them) would recognize that software development is both critical to pretty much any research today, as well as something they cannot just pick up on the side.

wlievens 11y ago
> But hey, cool with me, I carved out a consulting niche in cleaning up such messes in exactly that environment. Sounds like an interesting story there. Anything you can share about it?
- roel_v 11y ago
  Not so interesting really, just that funding is structured in such a way that there are ways to get funded to convert research prototypes into production-quality software, and as long as you have researchers willing to include it in their proposals, domain knowledge to have credibility and hold your ground in your consortium, and a network within which you're known for this; then you can make a living as an independent researcher/software consultant. I'll add to this that I stumbled into some peculiar, non-replicable circumstances which let me bypass the 'only eat ramen for several years' phase that is the rite of passage in the academic world. The opportunity cost of that would have made it non-rational for me to do this. So I don't have actionable career advice on this line of work, I'm afraid.
collyw 11y ago
I am a software engineer for a sequencing centre and I completely agree. Scientists don't value proper software development and think that writing one off scripts is the same thing.
88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
How does one carve out such a niche?
- roel_v 11y ago
  I don't know, I more stumbled into it - I'll admit that my wording made it sound like it was premeditated in my case...
_Wintermute 11y ago
Problem is that scientists get paid pretty terrible wages, though this is expected and pretty much drilled into you since undergraduate 'If you wanted to be paid for your brains, you should have gone into finance' and so on. On the other hand, programmers and software developers are not likely to put up with being paid peanuts when there are plenty of well paying jobs out there. I can't see much reason why many of them would stick around.
- jghn 11y ago
  I did the latter for years although it was really because I had no idea how much wages had inflated in that time period, primarily because Americans just don't talk about salary much and I didn't think to poke around. Once I realized the situation it didn't take long to double my salary.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  I turned down a job working as a scientific-programmer-at-large for a college recently because it would have been a 40% pay cut. (I might have taken it at 20%, but I have a mortgage and a family).
- roel_v 11y ago
  "Problem is that scientists get paid pretty terrible wages" I can't claim to know the situation everywhere, but apart from the postdocs (and I guess the 'adjunct' temp positions endemic in the US), assistant and full professors actually get paid quite well (I know of Western Europe, AU/NZ, Canada, and I think it's the same in most places in the US too - although I don't know first hand there). Funding agencies would fund software people. There is no will to change it though, because hey I wrote 5000 lines of C or Fortran back in the 80's when I was a grad student, so why can't you do the same today? I have a CD-Rom with a very good C++ compiler I've been using since the early 1990's, I'll send you a copy, you should try it out! (I paraphrased that last line, but I was actually told this less than 4 months ago).

by roel_v 11y ago

wlievens 11y ago

> But hey, cool with me, I carved out a consulting niche in cleaning up such messes in exactly that environment. Sounds like an interesting story there. Anything you can share about it?

roel_v 11y ago
Not so interesting really, just that funding is structured in such a way that there are ways to get funded to convert research prototypes into production-quality software, and as long as you have researchers willing to include it in their proposals, domain knowledge to have credibility and hold your ground in your consortium, and a network within which you're known for this; then you can make a living as an independent researcher/software consultant. I'll add to this that I stumbled into some peculiar, non-replicable circumstances which let me bypass the 'only eat ramen for several years' phase that is the rite of passage in the academic world. The opportunity cost of that would have made it non-rational for me to do this. So I don't have actionable career advice on this line of work, I'm afraid.

collyw 11y ago

I am a software engineer for a sequencing centre and I completely agree. Scientists don't value proper software development and think that writing one off scripts is the same thing.

88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago

How does one carve out such a niche?

roel_v 11y ago
I don't know, I more stumbled into it - I'll admit that my wording made it sound like it was premeditated in my case...

_Wintermute 11y ago

Problem is that scientists get paid pretty terrible wages, though this is expected and pretty much drilled into you since undergraduate 'If you wanted to be paid for your brains, you should have gone into finance' and so on. On the other hand, programmers and software developers are not likely to put up with being paid peanuts when there are plenty of well paying jobs out there. I can't see much reason why many of them would stick around.

jghn 11y ago
I did the latter for years although it was really because I had no idea how much wages had inflated in that time period, primarily because Americans just don't talk about salary much and I didn't think to poke around. Once I realized the situation it didn't take long to double my salary.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
I turned down a job working as a scientific-programmer-at-large for a college recently because it would have been a 40% pay cut. (I might have taken it at 20%, but I have a mortgage and a family).
roel_v 11y ago
"Problem is that scientists get paid pretty terrible wages" I can't claim to know the situation everywhere, but apart from the postdocs (and I guess the 'adjunct' temp positions endemic in the US), assistant and full professors actually get paid quite well (I know of Western Europe, AU/NZ, Canada, and I think it's the same in most places in the US too - although I don't know first hand there). Funding agencies would fund software people. There is no will to change it though, because hey I wrote 5000 lines of C or Fortran back in the 80's when I was a grad student, so why can't you do the same today? I have a CD-Rom with a very good C++ compiler I've been using since the early 1990's, I'll send you a copy, you should try it out! (I paraphrased that last line, but I was actually told this less than 4 months ago).