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Ask Slashdot: Scientific Research Positions For Programmers?
An anonymous reader writes "I recently (within the past couple years) graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and currently work as a programmer for a large software consulting firm. However, I've become gradually disillusioned with the financial-obsession of the business world and would like to work for the overall betterment of humanity instead. With that in mind, I'm looking to shift my career more toward the scientific research side of things. My interest in computer science always stemmed more from a desire to use it toward a fascinating end — such as modeling or analyzing scientific data — than from a love of business or programming itself. My background is mostly Java, with some experience in C++ and a little C. I have worked extensively with software analyzing big data for clients. My sole research experience comes from developing data analysis software for a geologic research project for a group of grad students; I was a volunteer but have co-authorship on their paper, which is pending publication. Is it realistic to be looking for a position as a programmer at a research institution with my current skills and experiences? Do such jobs even exist for non-graduate students? I'm willing to go to grad school (probably for geology) if necessary. Grad school aside, what specific technologies should I learn in order to gain an edge? Although if I went back to school I'd focus on geology, I'm otherwise open to working as a programmer for any researchers in the natural sciences who will take me."
I think a solution a lot of people find is to split their day: they pay their bills with a job they can (just about) tolerate, and then use their free time to focus on their passion, perhaps in a small community (cf. FOSS development).
Also, academia is no paradise either: it's not so much about focusing on what you are interested in, but rather focusing on where there is funding, and where you can find your own niche. It's surprising and depressing how many niches are already filled: it's like trying to find an empty shell on the ocean floor.
I can talk from my experience in Europe. Although you may have the experience and knowledge to do the research successfully; going to grad school will open many doors. You will have access to information about ongoing projects, publications, etc ... And by the way you will fill some possible weak points in your knowledge about the subject.
About technologies; you must be flexible; just know how to program, not on a specific language. Anyway, I recommend you to get to know (and learn to love) Matlab.
One thing that should be clarified here: with these sort of programming roles there is no direct access to academia. In this way it's not like finance where, for instance, people can go from back office to front office if they show enough promise and interest: one does not simply go from research programmer to reseacher.
From the sounds of it, OP would be best served by going into academia via a graduate program.
If you want to get into scientific research programming with big data, you are probably going to have to engage with statistical programming. R is probably the lang of choice at least in the biological arena, due to FOSS and all the prebuilt packages. People also I've seen using Matlab quite a bit, but I think you wouldn't go wrong with R. You might also want to get engaged in something like Kaggle or the DREAM challenges, build yourself a bit of a profile on those arenas, and eventually try to team up with some guys on one of the challenges there, as a way of making contact with people in the big data research area. Any graduate training (postgrad as it would be called in Europe), would only help - there are many positions that just won't be available to you until you have had a 'research training' which means Masters as a minimum or preferably a PhD eventually.
Korma: Good
I can tell you that with out a PhD, your are viewed as little more than a trained chimp. Masters in both CS and Applied Math seemed to mean nothing, the fact that these so called doctors were incapable of writing more than 4 lines of intelligible code was beside the point.
It was fairly annoying, and none of my work is cited in their papers.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Three words: Math, math, and math.
If you don't have the advanced math skills, your use to a scientific research effort will be limited.
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
I actually moved in the opposite direction from a pure research position in the hard sciences to a programming position in support of research. At the time, I received similar advice from a senior researcher. It was a little more strident though, something like: "What are you nuts? You won't ever be able to propose research again and no one will ever take you seriously."
This is sometimes true, but it depends on what exactly you do and who you work with. I moved from doing molecular biology research (as a PhD student) to writing software in support of same. I have far more exposure now than I was ever likely to get by doing my own research, and I have lots of other researchers (both junior and senior) constantly asking me for help. As a result I've been able to rack up enough publications and visibility that I don't think I'd have a problem moving back to pure research. However, as long as I'm doing methods development, it would be very difficult to get a tenure-track faculty position; I'd basically have to demote myself back to postdoc and do more basic research for a while. Fortunately I have no such delusions.
The bigger problem for the submitter, as others have implied, is the lack of a PhD; this is always going to limit his (?) career advancement.
Sure, if you define 'humanity' as 'the leeches at the top of the org chart who don't do any actual work'.
An oversimplification. You're not wrong, but the problem isn't that cut and dried. It depends on how they turn a profit. If they sacrifice long-term viability to make the quarterly statement look better, yes, they're turning a profit, but eventually the bad choices will catch up with the company - but by then the people who made the bad choices have long since pulled the ripcord on their golden parachutes and left the rank and file out of a job. I would argue that a better business model is not only to turn a profit, but give the employees a stake in the company's success beyond "you get to keep your job."
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.