Academia is a reputation economy: careers succeed or fail based on a shared perception of the scale of contributions. The Alan Turing Institute is a research institute with a mission both to contribute to scholarship, and to deliver real-world economic and social impact, much of which is realised in software. This lecture reflected on life as a “middle author scientist”, considered the contributions to research of those who deliver “too much code and not enough papers”, and considered models for alternative academic careers, and tweaks to the academic system of social credit, which incentivise collaboration and balance scholarship and service.