[Azrael3000]

Well I think the best way would be for RSEs to maintain a project and PhDs should then contribute to that project via pull requests. RSEs can then point towards proper coding styles, test development, etc.

That would ensure that the contributions of the PhDs does not get lost and they learn how to properly contribute to a project.

[joshvm]

See my sibling comment on this. I think this is an ideal case for an RSE: if you have a shared codebase that ends up being contributed to by multiple members. That avoids legacy problems where someone contributes, leaves, someone else modifies, none of it is in source control etc. However, this assumes that you have a group that is structured around some common IP or library - and sure, there are lots of places where this applies. This is generally more mature research, not something that a PhD student has just come up with.

There are of course scenarios where someone comes up with some very high impact work, and there's an obvious need to make it robust or user-friendly, spin-out, etc.

It works less well for groups where everyone works on different or loosely related projects. That's not an efficient use of an RSE's time, in my opinion. Though of course you can have a situation where lots of people do random projects using the lab's core code. In both cases, there is a use-case where RSEs embedded in a university can train students on good coding practices.