I don't honestly know how much I can disclose (FTR, I was not the one doing that job - I was working as a postdoc there at the time), but I'll try to summarize it briefly:
- PI got a couple of EU funded grants
- PI wanted to build a program / programs out of some ideas he had before moving to the institution he was currently employed at
- PI hired a software developer (actually a software engineer) to do this job
- Statistician drafted algorithms, developer created the software
- I used the software for my Ph.D. thesis, got hired at the lab of the PI as a postdoc, new requirements arose due to the way I used it
- Developer made a preliminary version of a new version of the software following discussions with me
- University made it very hard to keep developer on the team, due to bureaucracy and kind of hostility towards this kind of employment
- At some point (I can't recall the details exactly, but it was something that spanned almost one year), the form of keeping the developer on board was no longer possible
- PI offers an alternative contract, but it is financially wasteful to the developer (not the fault of the PI, but the way certain things work in my country)
- Developer leaves the project
Also the university, to my knowledge, complained that the developer cost a lot (IIRC, the project was paid at market rate, so in line with other, non academic software projects).
I can't comment on the quality of the software we used (sadly it was never open sourced) as it was in Java and I only have a passing understanding of the language, but the approach of having a dedicated developer IMO worked (and also net quite a number of publications over that period).
- PI got a couple of EU funded grants
- PI wanted to build a program / programs out of some ideas he had before moving to the institution he was currently employed at
- PI hired a software developer (actually a software engineer) to do this job
- Statistician drafted algorithms, developer created the software
- I used the software for my Ph.D. thesis, got hired at the lab of the PI as a postdoc, new requirements arose due to the way I used it
- Developer made a preliminary version of a new version of the software following discussions with me
- University made it very hard to keep developer on the team, due to bureaucracy and kind of hostility towards this kind of employment
- At some point (I can't recall the details exactly, but it was something that spanned almost one year), the form of keeping the developer on board was no longer possible
- PI offers an alternative contract, but it is financially wasteful to the developer (not the fault of the PI, but the way certain things work in my country)
- Developer leaves the project
Also the university, to my knowledge, complained that the developer cost a lot (IIRC, the project was paid at market rate, so in line with other, non academic software projects).
I can't comment on the quality of the software we used (sadly it was never open sourced) as it was in Java and I only have a passing understanding of the language, but the approach of having a dedicated developer IMO worked (and also net quite a number of publications over that period).