Much has been written about the importance of software best practices and the need for training and educating research software developers. And we’re certainly not here to disagree. But what about the people working on the software, who take ownership of the code and all the infrastructure around it? Surely the people must be important contributors to both the scientific software endowment and the larger research ecosystem. All the training and education in the World Wide Web won’t help if the people writing software aren’t supported and encouraged to use those resources. But who are we, where do we belong, and how many thousands (or tens of thousands or more) of us are out there?

It takes people to write research software

The term “Research Software Engineer” (or “RSE” for short), while not necessarily a household name, has become increasingly common in the scientific community. Definitions aside (more on that later), the use of a common term has helped rally the community around this increasingly important role: those individuals who sit somewhere between a pure researcher and a pure software developer, who view their software contributions to research software as a fundamental part of their work.

In the United States and globally, over the past two to three years (except the UK, which seems to be a few years ahead of the trend), the use of the term RSE has exploded. The RSE role was formally recognized in 2019 by the European Commission in a report “Recognising the Importance of Software in Research - Research Software Engineers (RSEs), a UK Example” and by UNESCO in the report “Paris Call: Software Source Code as Heritage for Sustainable Development”. As an anecdotal example, at a Supercomputing 2018 (SC18) workshop, one of the organizers acknowledged not having heard the term RSE used before. Fast forward to a similar workshop at SC19. When the ~80 attendees were asked if any of them had not heard the term RSE, fewer than three people raised their hand. Some acknowledged that they’d heard it only days before -- but, still, this is progress. Moreover, many events at SC19 focused on RSEs, including how to share best practices, manage research software development in universities, and foster career paths.

Why does a name matter?

Defining RSE is hard, but it would be even harder without a term to rally around. This is step 0 in developing a supportive community for the people who do this kind of work. Why do we keep putting people in italics? Because we feel strongly that developing a community of practitioners is essential for the long-term health of the scientific software community.

If RSE were easy to define, the community would have already successfully done so. A number of definitions have been offered (see the UK-RSE, DE-RSE, and NORDIC-RSE definitions, for example), and for the most part they are all just small variations of each other. Some people view themselves more as this or less of that, and in the end it probably just boils down to an example of the blind man and the elephant parable. But when it comes to the people in the discussion, as Maya Angelou said in her powerful poem "Human Family," “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."

What is the US-RSE Association?

The US-RSE Association (US-RSE) strives to provide a member-focused community to those who associate with the role of Research Software Engineer. Connecting people is a great way to share knowledge, connections, and resources. This can be especially important for those who don’t have a large group of local peers. The US-RSE current membership spans academic, government, and not-for-profit and commercial enterprises. Sharing experiences and insights is already proving an important theme.

As the community grows, US-RSE aims to bring awareness and recognition to RSE practitioners across the nation and help expand the profession within the research ecosystem. This advocacy role involves many facets, but it can include helping fledgling RSE groups get started, defining RSE career paths, and assembling resources that can explain the role and its importance to non-RSEs (such as HR, senior decision-makers, students, sponsors, and customers).

What’s new in US-RSE?

The growth over the past nine months of the US-RSE has been considerable. We’ve put together a list of online resources hosted at us-rse.org, have expanded into social media (@us_rse), and have formulated an official code of conduct. We are excited to be able to hold our first official event in April, a first US-RSE community building workshop, thanks to a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. We expect this to generate a substantial amount of new content for the burgeoning community.

How can you get involved?

Do you consider yourself an RSE, maybe an RSE but not sure, or a supporter of the RSE role? Are you interested in becoming an RSE? Or do you just want to get to know the community better? For whatever reason, you are welcome to join, contribute to the conversation, and help build the community. The best way to get engaged is to join (https://us-rse.org/join/), take a look at the evolving list of ways to contribute (https://us-rse.org/get-involved/), and reach out within the US-RSE Slack workspace.

Author bios

Ian Cosden is the Manager of HPC Software Engineering and Performance Tuning in the Research Computing department at Princeton University, where he leads a team of Research Software Engineers who collectively complement traditional academic research groups by offering embedded, long-term software development expertise. He is the current chair of the US-RSE Association steering committee.

Chris Hill directs research computing at MIT. He has led numerous computational initiatives to develop physical, virtual, and human resources that facilitate research computing at MIT, as well as in the broad Massachusetts and Northeast region. He is active in computational Earth science and is a lead developer and sustainer of open source ocean modeling tools that are widely used by a diverse global community on a daily basis.

Sandra Gesing is an Associate Research Professor in Computer Science and Engineering and a Computational Scientist at the Center for Research Computing at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on usability, reproducibility, and sustainability of computational methods regarding science gateways, computational workflows, and distributed computing. She is a supporter of open access policies and FAIR principles.

Charles Ferenbaugh is a staff scientist in the Applied Computer Science group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since 2001, he has been a software developer in LANL’s Advanced Simulation and Computing program and is currently involved in the Eulerian Applications Project and the Ristra/Next Generation Code project. He has also contributed to research in advanced architectures and programming models.