For units such as departments, schools, or flagship projects
Computing is everywhere: in almost every unit of every field of research. But computing is often hard, and not everyone can do what they need to alone. Advanced computing needs to be a team effort, and we can help with that.
Aalto Research Software Engineers (RSE) is part of Science-IT, the Aalto University infrastructure for scientific and high-performance computing. Science-IT is a virtual organization in Aalto, and your unit can join by hiring staff to serve with us.
Proposal in brief
Aalto Science-IT is a research infrastructure, and part of it is Aalto Research Software Engineers. Our job is to make computing possible for everyone. We have some ability to serve all Aalto, but this is limited.
Your unit can reach the next level of computing and AI based research by supporting its staff with Research Software Engineers. This will allow your research community to do better science, faster, and more reproducible. You’ll waste less time on solved problems.
You can fully join the RSE team by hiring (or finding internally) some staff interested in research software and scientific computing. They’ll join our team, taking full advantage of our knowledge and resources, while focusing on your own unit’s problems.
What do research software engineers do?
See also: ASC blog post: What is a Research Software Engineer?
What do you need to do with computing, but your staff currently struggle with? It depends on your unit’s needs, but in general activities include:
Consulting with project’s small problems (solve problems faster and save time)
Writing and supporting software, when the software isn’t the main goal of the research
Keeping data organized
Port code and manage workflows on supercomputers
Finalizing projects and making nice interfaces for the public to view.
Manage automation and workflows: reach a larger scale.
Assist in planning for research ethics evaluations and data management.
See our portfolio for more examples of real projects.
Previous measurements have shown that RSEs are a good investment: an hour of our time usually saves 5 hours of researcher’s time or more. We also make new projects possible, which couldn’t be done otherwise. Aalto RSE’s biggest impact is speeding up and improving lots of small projects, but we usually have some longer projects going on, too.

One way of looking at the types of projects a RSE can do. Note we do anything from providing advice to speed up other projects to doing projects ourselves, where an academic can’t.
How it can work
Aalto Science-IT (and thus Aalto RSE) is a university-level research infrastructure. It operates as a virtual team: in principle, it’s easy for your staff to join. Here’s how we would go about it:
First, think of where such a person can be situated. Are they hired at the school level? Department? Service staff or academic staff? Job title? All of these can be adapted to what makes the most sense for your school.
As for the actual hiring, you might already have someone internal who is interested in a focus shift. For new hires Aalto Research Software Engineers can help with recruitment. We can suggest good candidates from our recruitment calls - we get many good candidates from various schools.
Your new hire would begin in your school, but initially spend time working with Aalto RSE. They can join our support and training sessions and learn the tools of our trade, while focusing on your own unit’s problems. This is the way we onboard people to computational support. See the RSE work rotations blog post for more info.
After some time, your staff may split off into its own team, or they might continue operating as part of the Aalto-wide team. We’ll discuss and see what is best for you. Some continued collaboration is best, because a large team has the most knowledge to draw on.
How to get in touch
If the above sounds like something that would benefit your unit, Aalto RSE is ready to help you (2024). Gen in touch with Richard Darst or rse@aalto.fi.
Current member units
See Unit information