

Ask HN: Market for SAS/R developers? - canadiancreed

So I was informed by my current employer that one of the things on their todo list is to have me do SAS and&#x2F;or R programming along with the PHP&#x2F;Java that I&#x27;m doing now. While it&#x27;s great to have more languages on the ole resume, I&#x27;m wondering what the market for these languages are like? Is there crazy demand for them out there, or is it as useful as saying your&#x27;e a HTML programmer?
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dagw
Knowing SAS/R in isolation is worth very little. Knowing statistics and data
analysis is worth a lot and SAS/R are pretty good tools for doing statistics
and data analysis. Unless you're also willing to learn the underlying
statistics and data analysis there isn't much demand for SAS or R programmers.
However there is massive demand for competent data analysts capable using SAS
or R.

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jdale27
Not sure what domain you're in, but here's the view from mine...

SAS is extremely common in pharma companies. Basically, any company that has
anything to do with a clinical drug trial will be using SAS.

In the basic research / tool development parts of the biotech industry, R is
common as well. Today, basically every biotech company has some kind of "data
science" component (though they won't necessarily have adopted that buzzword).

Either way, in my view this is a far more specific and valuable skill than
"HTML programmer".

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canadiancreed
Ya I should have specified my domain when posting this. I'm currently in the
healthcare field for one of the larger hospitals here in Toronto. One of the
reasons for this posting was to gauge how useful it'd be for the private
sector, as it's both my preference and it's only a year long contract.

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rankam
Many companies that employ Data Scientists in NYC use R for their stats and ML
work. While I personally prefer Python over R for ML related tasks, R does
seem to be gaining traction in the private sector. I recommend ML for Hackers
if you're interested in learning more about R - the author is very
knowledgable and works as a Data Scientist for Facebook.

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920018483.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920018483.do)

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laughfactory
SAS and R are heavily used for data and statistical analysis. As such, they're
very employable "languages." SAS especially can pull down big bucks, but R is
the better language/platform. I worked with SAS extensively (and learned R in
college) and really disliked SAS. It is widely used but felt very archaic and
poorly thought-out. The interface is ugly as sin and the SAS language is a
mess. After using it for a year it blows my mind that companies pay so much to
use it.

But employable? Definitely.

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dagw
I have a couple of friends who do portfolio and risk management at two
different pension funds, and both of those places use a lot of SAS.

That being said neither of my friends knew SAS when they where hired and I
doubt there are many places that hire people because they know SAS. They hire
people because they know statistics and risk analysis and then send them on a
4 day SAS course if necessary.

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SkipP
SAS is huge in financial services. I have come across it quite a bit. I have
statistics knowledge, but not programming skills really. I know of many jobs
requiring SAS. I have never seen a HTML programming job listing. R is mostly
used in academia. I do not know of anyone in the private sector using it.

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ig1
If you want to go into more statistical type of roles in the future (data
science, analytical marketing, etc.) than they're very useful.

Outside of that they're of less use.

