> That sounds like an interesting and varied role.
It is, and it doesn't get as much formal recognition in the research world. Some folks are trying to change this [0], but unfortunately for the moment research software engineers often end up more of a happy accident than a deliberate decision on the part of labs. Part of this is due to weirdness in how funding is allocated for research positions at universities- instead of research programmers being funded through operating expenses like a secretary, administrator or many (but not all) librarians, most lab positions are dependent upon soft money (i.e., grants) that could potentially evaporate unexpectedly. I had a friend at ${BAY_AREA_UNIVERSITY} who almost had this happen to him recently, but fortunately his PI got another grant so he didn't need to get furloughed/laid off. When I was living in Ithaca, I noticed a similar trend of non-faculty taking sabbaticals due to funding issues and then returning 6 months to a year or so later in a different department [1]. That sort of instability in employment is part of what scared me into moving to a major metropolitan area- I still work for a university, but I know I have options (although I'm currently not funded by soft money- last job was though).
I love my job. Most of the projects are medium sized ones with 100-200 hours of programming involved, so I get to see a good variety. Splitting my time between C, Java Script, MATLAB, Python, Swift, PHP and R means that I am probably not an expert in any of them, but I we have a solid team of general purpose programmers who can handle almost anything the labs send our way.
My only complaint would be that the pay is a little on the low side. Otherwise the work and the work environment are both excellent.
