Developing Personas and Programs to Enable Research Software Engineers to Specialize in High Performance Computing

Many Research Software Engineers come to High Performance Computing after previously studying a related degree and receiving on-the-job experience as part of a PhD or junior staff position. If we are to increase the diversity of RSEs working in HPC, we need to examine different routes for people, particularly those from non- traditional HPC backgrounds, to obtain the formal education and training needed for them to have a successful career. The UNIVERSE-HPC project has been developing personas, career pathways and a proposed Masters-level program for people looking to become RSEs specializing in High Performance Computing or Large-Scale Data Science. In this lightning talk, we introduce the pillars of this program, and discuss some of the challenges in developing a balanced program given the relatively short duration of UK masters courses.