Copyright © 2006, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. Career Opportunities in Statistical Computing Robert N. Rodriguez Sr. Director, Statistical Research.

Copyright © 2006, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved.

Career Opportunities in Statistical Computing

Robert N. Rodriguez Sr. Director, Statistical Research & Development

Blackwell-Tapia ConferenceNovember 15, 2008


Two Perspectives on Careers in Statistical Computing

1. Software development opportunities at SAS

2. Emerging opportunities in business

SAS Cary Campus Advanced Analytics R&D

~100 Ph.D. developers in statistics, forecasting, data

mining, operations research, and numerical analysis


SAS Global Reach

More than 400 offices globally in 51 countries

10,110 employees

4.5 million users worldwide • Approx. 40,000 sites

• 109 countries

Hundreds of local user groups globally


What’s Involved in Producing Statistical Software?

1. Listening to customers

2. Keeping up with advances in statistical methodology

3. Designing, writing, testing code

4. Writing user documentation

5. Providing technical support

6. Consulting with customers

7. Presenting to customersStatistical software testers Cheryl LeSaint and Yu Liang


Where Do Statisticians Contribute at SAS?

Software development

• 30 developers (Ph.D.)

Software testing

• 20+ testers (M.S. and Ph.D.)

Documentation

Technical support

• 15+ statisticians (M.S. and Ph.D.)

Education

• 12 statisticians (M.S. and Ph.D.)

Marketing and consulting

Statistical software developers Randy Tobias and Pushpal Mukhopadhyay


What We Look for in Statistical Software Developers Ph.D. in statistics, biostatistics, applied math, …

• Specialization in an area of modern statistics

• In-depth knowledge of computational techniques

Professional programming skills (hard to find!)• Ability to write large, complex programs in C (not the same as

writing programs in SAS, Matlab, S-PLUS, or R)

• Developed through on-the-job mentoring

Motivation• Challenged by creating software that moves new methods into

practice and helps customers solve problems


Opportunities for Graduate Students

SAS Summer Fellowship in Statistical Computing• opportunity to experience a

professional software development environment

• competitive; covers stipend, living expenses

• announced in December Amstat News

Permanent Positions• JSM Placement Service

• Job listings at www.sas.com/jobs Guixian Lin (2008 Fellow, U of Illinois) and Robert Cohen (SAS)


Opportunities in Statistical Computing:Analytical Software Solutions• Integrated solutions for key business problems

• Developed by interdisciplinary teams− industry experience− software skills (SAS, Java, database, user interface)− statistical computing skills− expertise in formulating and building statistical models

• Examples− monitoring for credit card fraud − credit scoring− customer retention and marketing automation− risk analysis (credit, market, and operational)− web analytics− warranty analysis


• Expertise in formulating business problems statistically

• Computational skills in predictive model-building, forecasting, and optimization

• Examples− survival models for customer lifetime value

− forecasting demand for store items

− experimental design for optimizing response in direct marketing

• Helpful articles for students

− Kahn, “The Practice and Culture of Statistics in Financial Services”, Sept 2006 Amstat News

− DeVeaux and Ungar, “Careers in Data Mining”, Sept 2007 Amstat News

Opportunities in Statistical Computing:Modeling in Financial and Retail Industries


New Opportunities in Statistical Computing:Business Analytics Enterprise-wide decision-making

based on corporate data using statistical modeling, forecasting, data mining, and optimization

Davenport and Harris (2007) describe companies that use analytics to drive performance

New professional master’s program in advanced analytics at North Carolina State University http://analytics.ncsu.edu

Davenport and Harris (2007), Competing on Analytics,

Harvard Business School Press


Career Opportunities in Statistical Computing

Robert N. Rodriguez Sr. Director, Statistical Research & Development

Blackwell-Tapia ConferenceNovember 15, 2008

Copyright © 2006, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. Career Opportunities in Statistical Computing Robert N. Rodriguez Sr. Director, Statistical Research.

Documents

sas institute

robert cohen sas slide

data access

data warehouses

data preparation

sas macro ability

testing slide

sas global reach