Research software engineer (RSE) communities of practice specific to a given science are crucial social structures between developers, maintainers and users prompting naturally occurring peer mentoring opportunities, software improvements through collaborative contributions, and sharing of best practices and lessons learned from challenges specific to that science discipline. Members of such communities benefit from the vast resources and support available through other RSEs of their own scientific field, and the users of those software benefit from a more capable and user-friendly product.

While the US-RSE (us-rse.org) advocates for recognition of the overall RSE community, provides individual RSEs with a sense of belonging (e.g., inclusivity), and provides helpful resources, it lacks the science specific support possible in more focused communities of practice. This session features short scene-setting presentations, followed by an open panel discussion with leaders of science-specific communities of practice for RSEs (e.g., Python in Heliophysics Community (PyHC), PlanetaryPy, earthaccess, and Pangeo) on the benefits of and lessons learned from leading those groups in comparison to more general RSE communities. Example discussion topics include the benefits of science-specific RSE communities, development of science-specific software standards, encouraging psychological safety, and community creation and sustainability.