A Community-Owned Database Mapping dRTP Roles, Skills, and Training

Abstract

Poster presented at the 10th Research Software Engineering Conference (RSECon26) in Sheffield, UK, 9-11 September, 2026. Abstract As is typical of all digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs), Research Software Engineer is a role that encompasses a wide variety of potential competencies and areas of work. Individual RSEs practice a range of skills, often specialising in a particular research domain and/or set of techniques/technologies. With increasing professionalisation, a need has grown for this diversity to be documented and mapped. Among other things, a mapping of skills to roles and training provision could facilitate the professional development of individual RSEs, the management of RSE teams, and research into the RSE community at large. Several recent initiatives have contributed to the mapping of the dRTP skills and training landscape. The community is making unprecedented progress in defining the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for growth in a dRTP career. However, the concurrency of these different initiatives presents a challenge to the community: how can we avoid the simultaneous development of multiple competing standards to describe these things? This poster introduces a database, developed and maintained by the newly-formed dRTP Landscape Mapping Coordination Group, that describes the roles performed by dRTPs, the skills they need to succeed in those roles, and the training available to equip them with those skills. This builds on the work of many recent initiatives, drawing together previously disparate outputs. We will describe our collaborative approach to developing the database, explain how community members can interact with it and why they might want to, and discuss our strategy to avoid the “XKCD 927” problem.