The State of AI* in the Research Software Engineer Workplace

Presentation from Steve van Tuyl from the Academic Data Science Alliance on Jan 6, 2026 in the Consortium for the Advancement of Scientific Software (CASS) User/Developer Experience working group. Recording available here. Talk abstract: Over a four month period, we engaged with over 100 research software engineers (RSEs) at a number of community events (SciPy, RSECon 25, US-RSE 2025, SC25) to better understand the impacts of Generative AI (GenAI) on the work of Research Software Engineers (RSEs). Through these conversations we have heard about how GenAI has impacted RSEs in academia, industry, and government roles, what promise they see in the technology, and what resources would be helpful for navigating the GenAI landscape. We’ll close the presentation with a view into next steps for developing these resources with the RSE community to ensure the profession thrives through this technological step-change.