RSEs in the Age of GenAI - Challenges, Opportunities, Requirements

Generative AI and agentic tools (GenAI) are dramatically changing research software practice. Researchers can now generate their research code more easily with less programming and software engineering experience. Anecdotal evidence suggests that researchers’ collaborations with RSEs now focus on more complex or higher-level software engineering tasks such as code review. These changes bring uncertainty: Will the RSE role be reduced to reviewing and refactoring AI-generated codebases, or combining prompt engineering and configuring agentic workflows? How can we assert the value of RSEs to our institutions, funders, and collaborators in the future? Will agentic systems replace RSEs and RSE groups?