Software engineering best practices applied to models used to represent and solve geophysical systems help make models more accessible, reliable, and economical in terms of development and runtime. Navigating the software licensing environment when choosing one’s own software package license compatible with external packages is a key decision. When users don't have to rely on the PI team to get started with a model, this accelerates science discovery. Presenters will demonstrate topics including compiled languages working together with scripted languages, platform-agnostic build systems, transitioning models from PI team to general science public users, and connecting open-source and black-box models. Use of language-agnostic tools and frameworks including GitHub Actions CI, CMake build system and compilers will be discussed. Language-specific techniques discussed include distributing platform-agnostic Python + compiled language packages.