Research Software Engineers: Career Entry Points and Training Gaps

As software has become more essential to research across disciplines, and as the recognition of this fact has grown, so too has the importance of professionalizing the development and maintenance of this software. The community of software professionals who work on this software have come together under the title “research software engineer” (“RSE”) over the last decade. This, in turn, has created the need to understand how RSEs come into this profession and into these groups, how to further promote this career path to potential members as well as the need to understand what training gaps need to be filled for RSEs coming from different entry points. We have categorized three main classifications of entry paths into the RSE profession and identified key elements, both advantages and disadvantages, that should be acknowledged and addressed by the broader research community to attract and retain a talented, diverse pool of future RSEs.