This Te Ara Paerangi submission is from a small group of Research Software Engineers and advocates thereof. The primary focus of the submission is around how improvements to the public science sector could help develop our research workforce, particularly those in Research Software Engineering roles. Despite being critical to Aotearoa New Zealand's research success, these roles are considered non-traditional in a research context leading to RSEs suffering from many of the wprkforce challenges seen across the sector - precarity of funding, a lack of diversity, and a lack of career recognition.