What Research Software Engineers Must be Afforded: Better Software through the Right Development Practices and Tools

Talk given to the CASS user/developer experience working group on May 6, 2025. Recording available here. Talk abstract: This meeting discusses design affordances and modes of interaction effective for supporting research software engineering. Software engineering (SE), or the processes, methods, and tools to support the development and maintenance of software, is crucial for producing high quality applications and is increasingly critical for scientific investigation. However, evidence-based practices grounded in SE research to support development tasks are often ignored by software engineers in practice—and even moreso for research software engineers without technical expertise. This talk will highlight challenges and motivate technological solutions informed and co-designed through two participatory design sessions with research software engineers. Based on our findings, we provide insights to enhance the design and implementation of development tools for research software development workflows to promote high-quality and robust research-based software systems.