For the past four years we have hosted Year in Industry students from the University and beyond. The students who have joined us are enrolled in a Computer Science based course at a UK University which requires them to work as part of their studies. We are keen to demonstrate what the role of Research Software Engineer involves by giving them real-life projects which will make a difference to researchers, integrating them into our RSE team and giving them real hands-on experience.
So what have they been up to since they started in July?
Hi everyone! I'm Saad, and I've joined Research IT as a Year in Industry student while studying BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Industrial Placement at the University of Manchester.
I wanted to do a placement year somewhere I would actually be working on projects that make a difference. Research IT stood out because the projects are tied to real research and, with some of them, real patients. I'm also one of the Co-Chairs for Google Developer Groups on Campus at the University of Manchester, so I've been keen to stay involved with the wider tech community alongside all this.
My first project was on AI Research Connections, building out LLM logic that pulls researcher bios from CVs for a matching tool, tested across 450+ cases to make sure it held up. I worked on this with Erdem Atbas, one of the Research Software Engineers, and it was a great start to the placement.
Since then I've moved onto eTARGET, a platform that helps NHS Molecular Tumour Boards match cancer patients to early-phase clinical trials. I've been modernising its Python data pipeline: swapping out an Azure SDK that hadn't been touched in 8-10 years, tidying up the code, and pushing test coverage up towards 80%. It's a system that will eventually handle real patient data once my changes go live, so it's been a good lesson in building carefully for that kind of environment. I've learnt a lot from Anja Le Blanc's coding expertise on this project, and her feedback has really helped me improve my software quality.
I'm really looking forward to continuing this work with the Digital Cancer Research team at the National Biomarker Centre!
Hi everyone! I'm Saki, and I've joined Research IT after completing the first two years of a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Birmingham.
During my second year, I spent a month working with Birmingham’s RSE team to explore approaches for Trusted Research Environments for high-performance computing. Birmingham recently received significant funding for a new National Compute Resource and part of this initiative involved giving students exposure to how HPC can support research. This led me to go for a placement year with Research IT at Manchester to get more software development experience on modern research challenges.
I have experience with Python and Java, as well as web development technologies such as Vue.js, React and Django. Since joining, I've been working on MULTIX, a prototype web application that aims to allow healthcare researchers to discover, organise and run experiments on patient imaging data from multiple XNAT servers, supporting large-scale research studies and future AI analysis.
My next project will be working with eLabFTW, an electronic lab notebook for researchers. I've also met staff and researchers from across the University and helped with an ITS Work Experience session for students at The Manchester College. Recently, we attended RSECon for a few days in Sheffield, and I’ve also judged a blackberry jam-making competition!
Over the next year, I'm hoping to significantly improve both my teamwork and technical skills, as well as making the most of the opportunity to explore Manchester.