How To Become A Research Programmer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a research programmer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Sheldon Logan Ph.D.

Before starting anything, the first step to take is to fully research what you are about to do. You have to properly know about its pros and cons so you can work accordingly. In case you're keen on turning into a Research Programmer, one of the principal interesting points is how much training you need. We've verified that 44.7% of Research Programmer have a four-year certification.

Regarding advanced education levels, we found that 44.7% of Research Programmer have graduate degrees. Despite the fact that most exploration software engineers have a professional education, it's difficult to get one with just a secondary school degree or GED The average representative age for Research Programmer is 45 years. The Research Programmer labor force arrived at an incredible figure of 29,334 in 2020. Among those laborers, we found that 19.0% of them are ladies, while 64.8% are men.

Research Programmer in the United States makes an average compensation of $74,226 each year or $35.69 per hour. Individuals on the lower end of that range, the base 10% to be precise, generally make $56,000 per year, while the top 10% make $96,000 yearly.

What general advice would you give to a research programmer?

Sheldon Logan Ph.D.

University of California, Santa Cruz

Network. The more people you know and the more comprehensive your system, the more opportunities you will be exposed to, in addition to being aware of all that's happening in the field. Technology changes quickly, so you don't want to be blindsided when changes are coming because you were pigeonholed in a specific area and not aware of broader technology trends.

ScoreResearch ProgrammerUS Average

Salary

6.3

Avg. Salary $80,823

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.1

Growth rate -7%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.18%

Asian 25.31%

Black or African American 4.10%

Hispanic or Latino 7.23%

Unknown 4.41%

White 58.77%

Gender

female 21.67%

male 78.33%

Age - 48

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 48

Stress level

5.1

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.7

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a research programmer

Explore research programmer education requirements

Most common research programmer degrees

Bachelor's

69.7 %

Master's

24.3 %

Doctorate

2.2 %

Start to develop specific research programmer skills

Skills	Percentages
Python	15.63%
Research Projects	7.09%
Java	6.72%
SAS	4.94%
Data Analysis	4.17%

Complete relevant research programmer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New research programmers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a research programmer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real research programmer resumes.

Research research programmer duties and responsibilities

Implement a centralize configuration system for managing application settings, consisting of a desktop application with a WCF backend.
Design front end applications in Java that interface with Linux base analysis systems.
Lead software developer and architect of high speed data collection software on the Linux platform.
Design and implement modular software system in C++ for general classification and regression analysis.

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