[qfwfq_]

I wonder whether this just creates another "underclass" of scientific laborers... I think we need tool-builders as academics. The only thing that academics recognize intellectually are peers. The rise of RSEs is a kind of intellectual outsourcing... implementation of your science should be part-in-parcel to its creation, not deferred to second-class non-academic "technicians." The friends and former students I've talked to who've entered RSE careers have largely been treated as second-class citizens in a research environment that they are integral to!

I think, like many things, the buck stops with academia itself, its metrics, demands, and incentives. We need more research engineering/science about science academics within compute-intensive science departments themselves. Things like JoSS [1] or Scientific Data [2] are awesome first steps at addressing this.

[1]: https://joss.theoj.org/

[2]: https://www.nature.com/sdata/