Developer Stories

Ron is passionate about software engineering, teaching, and supporting the research community.

Paul Richmond has stepped up to be the new president of the Society for Research Software Engineering in the UK. After years of masquerading as researcher he was finally able to move into a role as RSE. Oh, and watch out for what's hidden in his garden.

Dan Katz is well-known in the research software engineering world for his leadership, and consistent work on policy and community.

Research Software Engineers work with hardware too, and we should grow community around it.

As former president of the Society of Research Software Engineering Alys Brett has a unique insight into the RSE movement and where it's heading.

What does Research Software Engineering mean at a National Lab, and how is rock climbing like programming?

Olivia Guest is a computational cognitive modeler. She is also a prolific publisher and blogger. In this episode we discuss, amongst other things, two of her catchy blog posts.

Tania Allard is much more than a research software engineer, fostering community growth, and excitement for open source.

Maëlle is well known in the R community: from being an associate editor at rOpenSci, the rWeekly blog or community initiatives such as rLadies. She has also an interesting portfolio of projects, including a project to monitor the impact of environmental factors on cardiac disease in India.

In this episode, we hear a story of how research software engineering came to be.

Let's put RSEs on equal footing with academics and professionals and get them recognised and formal roles, says Nooriyah Lohani from NESI in New Zealand. That requires to reach decision makers. And for that you need to build and foster a strong community first.

A journey of discovering a desire to be a research software engineer, finding a niche, and then fighting to keep it.

Meet Brian Hills, Deputy CEO and Head of Service Design at the Data Lab in Scotland. After years in the private sector Brian joined Datalab to help bridge the gap in data science between universities and the private sector. Ethics in data plays an important part and success strongly depends on your value set, says Brian.

As director of the research software alliance Michelle takes us through the necessary changes we need to cope with the scientific challenges of the future. This includes digital skill sets as well as providing for reliable and safe handling of digital data and assets. In all these endeavours, open science is critical, says Michelle.

For our second annual Halloween special, we join Leo for the ultimate tech interview.

What does it mean to create a sustainable, resilient community?

When Nick left the private sector and went back to university to get his degree in computer science he found that he 'learnt how he should've done things' all along. Being back in academia Nick got himself involved in building the RSE community in Australia and New Zealand.

Where do object oriented design, Fortran, and innovation in designing your role collide? Listen to the episode this week to find out!

From assessing snow fall in Britain to livestock movements, Mike has provided his expertise in data science to policy makers and influencers. So testing the data and underlying assumptions is an essential step. For this it is sometimes necessary to move outside our comfort zone.

If you need to publish or perish as an academic researcher, then as a research software engineer you need to establish or perish.

What do plankton surveys, R and reproducibility have in common? In this episode, Anna Krystalli from the University of Sheffield (UK) shares her vast experience and covers areas from macro biology to R programming, community building to making software more open and reproducible.

Diversity of background, perspective, and taking care of yourself and your team are only a few of the ingredients for resilient teams and tools.

How can we move beyond publish or perish in science? Meet Emmy Tsang who is passionate about changing and improving the way we communicate science and make scientific discovery faster, fairer and better.

Success for a research team happens at the intersection between system admins, research software engineers, and researchers. No one knows this better than Blake Joyce.

Have you ever wondered how AI can improve the taste of beer? Look no further than the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), where James Collier and Alexander Botzki are working hard to help beer lovers enjoy their drinks even more.

Successful and reproducible science is not just about writing software, but creating interfaces and interactions that are comfortable for researchers to use. In this episode, Sandra Gesing tells us about the importance of science gateways.

Meet Radovan from Tromsø in Northern Norway, who is building exciting software and teaching students how to be good engineers. He is also busy building and growing the Nordic RSE community with colleagues from Sweden, Finland and other countries.

Crafting computational narratives and answering questions in the real world with grace and Python.

Ever wondered how AR can help blind and low vision people? Meet Camilla Longden, RSE at Microsoft, who uses AI and machine learning technologies to help improve their lives.

How far back does research software engineering go?

Meet Stephan Druskat, RSE at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Listen to Stephan explain his exciting work for research in linguistics and his contributions to making software citable.

What prompts a research software engineer to become a CEO?

For about 10 years the Software Sustainability Institute in the UK has been the backbone of research software engineering. But how did their work fare during the coronavirus pandemic? And how will research software engineering change in future?

Solving problems for a safer world

Today from across the pond: How research software engineers help fighting infectious diseases like the coronavirus. What challenges do they face?

Have you ever thought about what makes good software and communities? Hint: it's a lot of the same as would be needed to tend a garden.

Package management, or Spack Attack? Listen and decide for yourself!

Sometimes becoming an RSE is greater than the job description. It's about finding a place where you belong.

Bob Killen talks about a new kind of research software engineer, one that focuses on message based workflows on container clusters.

How do software and agriculture collide? Christoph gives us a first hand look at what it means to work on and develop for a farm.

Kenneth Hoste is a passionate HPC admin and RSE that maintains the EasyBuild project.

How surprising interests can lead us to being an RSE

A reminder about the value of people.

Designing DNA... only a teardrop away!

A story of learning, and following both passions for science and the sunshine.

Ben Glick shares a rich undergraduate experience that ranges from building an HPC system to dancing with fire.

The beautiful intersection between digital humanities and computer science.

Code for the moon, and even if you stay on the ground, you'll land among the stars.

Research software engineering for open source neuroscience

Ross thought he might want snacks and nap-pods, but found happiness in The Lab Without A Couch