---
title: "Comment by Stefan de Lange on \"My Target Audience\" | Hashnode"
description: "Great post. But after reading this I am confused about the definition of 'scientific coder'. Are there truly developers that want to, and then are allow"
url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/my-target-audience/643e830713ce9baa5df6631e/comment/643e8b49f1a72ce2b6f7b0f4"
---

[Discussion](https://hashnode.com/posts/my-target-audience/643e830713ce9baa5df6631e)

Comment [My Target Audience](https://hashnode.com/posts/my-target-audience/643e830713ce9baa5df6631e)

[Stefan de Lange](https://hashnode.com/@langestefan)

[Apr 18, 2023](https://hashnode.com/posts/my-target-audience/643e830713ce9baa5df6631e/comment/643e8b49f1a72ce2b6f7b0f4)

Great post. But after reading this I am confused about the definition of 'scientific coder'. Are there truly developers that want to, and then are allowed to by their employer, to dive into the science behind what they are 'developing'? It seems like two completely different worlds to me. I do understand it the other way around though, it is really painful to read code written by some scientists even though it 'works'. I am in academia but I spend a lot of time trying to improve the quality of my code. Mostly out of the frustration I feel when I read somebody else's code and I don't understand it. Not because it's difficult but because it's poorly written. I don't wish that on anyone

[Matthijs Cox](https://hashnode.com/@matthijscox)

[Apr 18, 2023](https://hashnode.com/posts/my-target-audience/643e830713ce9baa5df6631e/comment/643e8b49f1a72ce2b6f7b0f4#reply-643ea7bad3b496edf1a976dc)

Thanks for the question actually! Perhaps my description is still too generic.

I agree that in many cases we can just teach scientists to code better. There seems to be a whole industry of converting scientists into software engineers. You can find lots of vacancies for scientific software engineer or scientific programmer if you google for it.

Those people still tend to use lots of science and numerical computing principles in their code.

Finding pure software engineers and teaching them more science is a much rarer path, though I have found some during my career.

I do intend to interview scientific coders and ask what they do, how they work and what products they make. Hopefully things will become clearer with such examples.

[Stefan de Lange](https://hashnode.com/@langestefan)

[Apr 18, 2023](https://hashnode.com/posts/my-target-audience/643e830713ce9baa5df6631e/comment/643e8b49f1a72ce2b6f7b0f4#reply-643ec103afd036f10426ad1f)

[Matthijs Cox](https://hashnode.com/@matthijscox)

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I look forward to the interviews.