> I’m curious, are dedicated software assurance teams a thing in your research area?

Are these a thing in any research area? I've heard of exactly one case of an academic lab (one that was easily 99th+ percentile in terms of funding) hiring one software engineer not directly involved in leading a research effort, and when I tell other academics about this they're somewhat incredulous. (I admittedly have a bit of trouble believing it myself -- I can't imagine the incentive to work for low academic pay in an environment where you're inevitably going to feel a sense of inferiority to first year PhD students who think they're hot shit because they're doing "research".)