Science needs more research software engineers
This looks great, and I would have loved to see this when I was in the lab.<p>When the software industry says to you: &quot;We will nearly triple your salary, you don&#x27;t have to work weekends, and you also don&#x27;t have to feed the mice on a Sunday night.&quot;<p>You will 100% take this deal.<p>I was a 10yr+ academic tool maker in biochemistry, built cutting edge microscopes, hardware, and image analysis software. My lab was successful in our field. I got some papers out of the deal. I also saw things that no human had seen before in a microscope. I worked with very interesting people from around the world. The work in academia is great. You&#x27;re moving the needle, new data, new failures. These are the perks. It is also highly possible that you have complete creative control of your project. I did, and it was amazing. Custom designed UIs to streamline our experiments, derived from watching students use the system to do their work. A decathalon of software design.<p>Some reality: Your PI and organization will never compensate you the way the software industry will. In pay, expectations, and benefits. When you&#x27;re over 30, and you don&#x27;t technically have a real 401k, you are still paying your student loans that you needed to get into this field, and you&#x27;re still in the same shitty apartment, something has to give.<p>Comparison is the thief of joy, and when you see your cohort of computer science graduates your joy will be stolen :). It&#x27;s good, honest work. A short tour of duty would be useful, and can teach you the difference between splitting the atom and splitting the check.<p>Academia, at least in bioscience, is still very much an ivory tower. You don&#x27;t have enough letters after your name to matter, and you will likely be a pet instead of a peer.<p>Don&#x27;t stay underwater for too long. Life is short. :D