[sbt]

> You don't have enough letters after your name to matter, and you will likely be a pet instead of a peer.

This is an underrated point. This is the case for programmers in finance as well, and requires a hefty salary premium to put up with.

[DrewADesign]

It certainly echoes my experience having just left a professional dev job in academia after an 11 year stretch. Anybody without academic credentials relevant to the subject matter is "the help" no matter how much you contribute, and it's flat-out demoralizing.

I worked on a tech-heavy project large enough to get an NYT feature article covering its launch. For it, I collaborated heavily on the service design and logistics, and singlehandedly designed, built, administered, documented, supported, and provided training for the technical infrastructure and more than a dozen related interfaces and tools. In lines of code, it probably landed somewhere in the low 5 figures, but that was certainly way more than it needed to be. It was hackish but durable and performant. It was an exercise in pure generalism— no individual accomplishment was close to technically innovative enough to warrant a novel white paper, but I was invited to speak at a few related conferences about it.

But the professor overseeing the project didn't even mention me or my role in his launch party speech for the folks in our building, let alone anywhere that would have provided career visibility. He thanked and spoke about the contributions of every other major contributor— even the temp worker who ran the machines (he wouldn't want to appear classist after all)— but I got a hand shake and quiet thank you after his speech for my 5 year effort. I was at every related manager's meeting and largely seen as one of three "go-to" people for the project in general, not just tech stuff.

This sort of gatekeeping is a part of academic culture I just don't get. At least in business there's some predictability to people stepping on each other to get to the top, but what's the purpose of this?

[psyc]

This sort of gatekeeping is a part of academic culture I just don't get

This is just a hypothesis, but I'd predict a high correlation between becoming an academia lifer, and having certain preexisting personality disorders, stemming from having never derived a sense of self worth from anything other than academic achievement since they learned to speak. Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself :)

Similar to the top tier of tech companies being destructive and amoral in their own ways, not only because they're corporations, but also because programmers see technical challenges waiting to be solved like a moth sees a porch light, but see ethical problems dimly. (still probably speaking for myself...)

[908B64B197]

> Anybody without academic credentials relevant to the subject matter is "the help" no matter how much you contribute, and it's flat-out demoralizing.

That's my number one advice regarding academia: unless there's a path toward a valuable visa, or it's paid work while getting a valuable degree (read, something that will have the prestige to open doors) or your co-author at a good university you're much better building something for yourself somewhere else.

> no individual accomplishment was close to technically innovative enough to warrant a novel white paper [...] But the professor overseeing the project didn't even mention me or my role in his launch party speech for the folks in our building, let alone anywhere that would have provided career visibility. He thanked and spoke about the contributions of every other major contributor

That's because papers are the metric by which visibility is measured. Pretty much the only way to move forward is getting your name as author on the main papers.

[DrewADesign]

This is different, though. I was a professional developer working in a non-academic lab doing work the academic world really cared about. Public recognition for big accomplishments is what distinguishes me from the 'web guy' at the help desk who knows how to customize Wordpress themes, and will lead to progressively interesting roles that pay well in exciting organizations. Just having X number of publications under my belt wouldn't budge the needle for my career. It's a weird sort of in-between spot without obvious career trajectories but you can get a decent salary while working on cool stuff.

[linuxftw]

What you did doesn't matter, and they gave you the right amount of recognition. There are 1000's of imported indentured servants that will happily do your job the moment you leave. Of course, we don't call them indentured servants any more, we use terms like 'academic visa' or such.

I'm sure they also didn't think the electricity company for keeping the lights on, or Microsoft for creating Windows to write their speeches, or the guy that emptied the waste baskets in the office so the PHD guy didn't have to.

Don't carry water for someone else. Enrich yourself. That's all anyone else is doing, all the 'research' is for personal enrichment and prestige. Don't prop up the broken academic industry with less than market wages, let them fail.

[DrewADesign]

Nothing anybody does matters. It's all a big scam, man. ::hits birthday cake flavored vape and sips energy drink:: I'm looking out for number one from now on, bro.

[sampo]

> no individual accomplishment was close to technically innovative enough to warrant a novel white paper

There are so many academic journals, from scammy, to bad (yet honest), to average, to good, to the top. You can publish almost anything, if you select an appropriate, less prestigious journal.

[DrewADesign]

Yeah— wouldn't have helped in this situation. I was a professional and (deliberately) not in an academic career path, and at this very prestige-conscious institution, publishing in a scuzzy journal probably would have made me look worse.

[the_only_law]

Yeah but am I going to get the job if all I have is garbage published in no name journals?

[konschubert]

Are you talking about the letters P, H and D? As in, if you don't have a PhD they don't see you as a peer?

[lucideer]

While informal culture and individuals' self-importance do play a role, it's also down to strict old-fashioned salary scales that many universities have in place (even if your day-to-day colleagues see you as a peer, the administrative systems defining your salary range can't/won't). Salaries are often strictly attached to letters behind your name, at a high level, and largely immovable by individual research departments.

And secondly, while your PHD peers may earn more than you, they also often earn much less than software industry averages.

[blululu]

I don’t think this is true in the slightest. At UC, research assistants typically make more than Grad Students or post-docs (of course the overhead and mentorship are also different and allegedly there is some possibility for greater career advancement). The snobbery is just plain snobbery. In industry there are plenty of people who make substantially more than me and I have never once felt the levels of condescension that I got from mediocre academics. There are maybe rationalizations related to scarcity and all that but jerk behavior is still jerk behavior.

[lucideer]

The intent of my comment wasn't to make out snobbery doesn't exist (or isn't rampant - it is & I've experienced plenty of snobbery from academics myself). Just that there are additional factors.

> At UC, research assistants typically make more than Grad Students or post-docs

That's cool but I didn't say every university; I don't think one counterexample makes my comment "[not] true in the slightest".

[exdsq]

I've honestly yet to meet a research software engineer without a PhD because of the academic bias you will get in, well, academia.

[xen0]

Depending on the definition of RSE, I may or may not have been one. The company I worked for was a Synchrotron Light Source; I worked on software for data collection on X-Ray beamlines. I would say that only about half of those in the same role as me had a PhD.

Moving away from data collection to analysis, the fraction of PhDs went up, but only reached 1.0 when considering the sub-group specialising in structural biology.

[ohlookabird]

For many years I worked in a high profile research institute (neuroscience) as an RSE without a PhD. Still don't have one, and that's okay (for the path I'm on). Quite a few of the other RSEs in the institute don't have one either. In total I'd say maybe 50% didn't have a PhD.

[pikewood]

I'm one who started with only a BS, and I'm at a top-20 public university in the US. It depends on your PIs, but I've definitely been appreciated on many of the projects I've worked on (e.g., listed with 2nd most ownership percentage on invention disclosures, which also won a campus-wide yearly award).

Admittedly, my path was convoluted; I started as a engineer to help with non-research software at a large lab, and got pulled on to projects via reputation. But I was replacing a Master's student who was essentially at the same academic level as me anyway. It does pay less, but I made the tradeoff for the quality of projects, which was worth more to me at this point in my career. It's still much more than I need, just not at industry levels.

[mattgreenrocks]

I found a role like this. I love it, with the caveat that doing research, software dev, and some lead-type stuff is a lot of work. Though my hours are capped at 40, I probably am thinking about it on some level at least fifty hours.

Pay is quite good, though, so I can't complain.

[gvurrdon]

I work with two of them at the moment. One is planning to apply for a PhD studentship soon, but the other does not intend to do so.

[zahllos]

Ok well I can fix that. Hi, I'm a research software engineer and I don't have a PhD.

I'm in Europe. My salary is definitely better than the PhD students' salaries, and I have a proper adult pension as that's a legal requirement here. My salary is approximately equal to what a graduate might earn 1-2 years after graduating in the local market, so doesn't match my actual experience, but I accepted the post for pandemic-induced reasons. Certainly the salary does not, nor will ever, compare to levels.fyi/FAANG type jobs or a large corp in country.

However it is true that my position officially is very much a curiosity. We don't have a defined RSE type role, so the slot I fit in is "staying on to help out on project after graduating". My job is a fixed term contract that can only be renewed a certain number of times and I'm approaching that limit soon. There isn't any viable track to joining the ranks of researchers - I would have to do a masters first, and this ironically would require doing an internship, in spite of the fact I have more actual industry (non-university) experience than the entire lab combined.

I'm also not sure if my lab head bent the rules or not on hiring me - it might be the case that I am supposed to have a PhD or at least a masters.

I would agree with top level post in most points. It is interesting work, but I don't "belong" anywhere in "the system". This might change in 10-20 years. Artefact evaluation is very much becoming a thing in systems research, because being able to reproduce other people's work is quite important, and very occasionally you will stumble upon papers whose claims are, ah, more expansive than the associated github project can fulfil. As more research relies on software that graduate students are simply ill-equipped to write (by virtue of having no experience in anything and by being taught by professors most of whom no experience writing production code) the role of an RSE might become more important in time, but like anything it'll be a slow change.

[908B64B197]

> My salary is approximately equal to what a graduate might earn 1-2 years after graduating in the local market

When talking about the "local market" in Europe one needs to take into account the large number of "dark matter devs" that are working remotely for SV companies, at SV salaries. They simply won't ever show up for interviews at local companies.

[zahllos]

In this case then I mean local local market, not devs working remotely for SV. I am aware. One of my friends does this and earns 2x what I do, in cash.

[the_only_law]

I’m surprised they even let you in without one.

Everyone “scientific programmers” potion I’ve seen wants you to have a PhD and be a domain expert.

[myst1]

Even if you have a PhD it sucks. Everyone without a PhD is trying to one up you, and everyone with one has invented ten other arbitrary things that ensure you are human trash on arrival.

Also, imagine all the people who failed out of masters or PhD programs who end up in management and are resentful. It's a surprisingly common thing.

[kevstev]

Agreed- you might appreciate a story that happened recently. I worked at a finance algo trading startup, right before and into the financial crisis. The first CEO/founder gets ousted, new guy is an old school "phones and traders" kind of guy, and didn't know, or even seem to care about tech at all. It was a strange choice, since we were built as a tech first company, but seeing as we were having difficulty getting traction, I think the hope was by getting the old guard type in there, we would have an easier time selling the new thing... anyway, I give this a go for a few months but eventually leave as I just could not stand his hardly contained contempt for technology, you could just see it on his face that he longed for the days of dropping F bombs on the floor, and then going out for expensive steak dinners at night. As I give my resignation, I get screamed at, he is red in the face dropping F bombs on me- "You are F---ing us!" etc... Long story short, I offered them to counter, with a 10x'ing of my equity stake, and even to extend my notice period- at my newly offered salary, but they declined all of it, though practically begged me to stay on for 3 extra months at my current salary. On the week I left, this guy tries to get me to sign all kinds of nasty non-disparagement agreements, which I had not signed previously, and with no additional consideration ($) in exchange, and I just refused, and he literally threw the stack of papers at me at one point. I guess I took all of this because I had literally been there since day 1 and just had a sense of ownership over everything- I also didn't think this guy would last very long.

Anyway, fast forward about 10 years to a few months ago, I get a generic "cold call" type message on LinkedIn from a unicorn data tools company, from the same CEO guy- he bounced around and somehow landed a sales role there. I ignored the first one... he sent a followup, and I was incredulous- did he not remember me? Did he not care? It was something along the lines of "Hey how are you? I am working with xxxx and think you would be interested- can we set up a chat..." and I just replied back saying "I am great, haven't been screamed at or had anyone throw something at me in ten years..." and he still had the balls to right back something like "lol, great. Let me know when we can set up a call..." and I wasn't really sure how to respond, but after about a week just wrote "If your next message isn't a very specific apology for your past behavior, do not contact me. I am surprised with your past attitude you would even work at a place like xxxx." If he was a dick I was going to reach out to their head of sales and possibly CEO explaining his past and how I was disappointed that a firm with their reputation would even hire someone like that. He gave me just a half hearted enough non-specific apology to not do that- followed up immediately with an offering of buying me a beer (so he can pitch me), so I opted not to escalate any further.

I have a few other stories similar to this, where Karma really bit those that were hostile and condescending towards technology and technologists, but this is the most direct. I kept in touch with a few of the old "traders" I used to work with, and used to go out for drinks with them from time to time, and they would invite a larger group of people, and I actually stopped because they were all kind of depressing- they all lost their old jobs, a few pivoted into different decent roles, but mostly they just got drunk pining for the good old days to come back.

While there was a tiny bit of schadenfreude, in the end its just sad.