Programming in Statistics Careers

[homeylova223]

[Mod note: post moved to its own thread]

As a biostatistician for a consulting firm for the pharmaceutical industry (and who has been working from home continuously for the past 5 years, and working remotely for the past 10 or so years)... And (surprisingly, given the current circumstances) I am still getting contacted from hiring managers and recruiters for open positions in statistics/biostatistics.

I have a question about statistic type of employment if you care to answer it.

My question is in statistics type careers does programming matter more or does mathematical knowledge of statistics matter more?

What I mean is that a statistic person tries to describe the data like the average age of a corona virus fatalality. So statistics I do not think you have to develop software and know various programming languages. The focus is more on describing data and python libraries or R libraries are used to make chart and bar plot to make the data more transparent. Trying to find I guess important things about data like the average weight of corona virus patient, the amount of deaths in the USA things like that.

So while there is some programming in statistics occupations you do not need to as much programming as a software developer who has to know data structures, things like different types int,long short boolean, and algorithms like sorting searching through a list.


I hope my post makes sense.

 

[.Scott]

If you are a wizard at Minitab and some statistics libraries, that can be a career in itself.
Most SW engineers have never worked with confidence intervals or anything similar. On the other hand, most could pick it up if they needed to.

 

[StatGuy2000]

[Mod note: post moved to its own thread]


I have a question about statistic type of employment if you care to answer it.

My question is in statistics type careers does programming matter more or does mathematical knowledge of statistics matter more?

What I mean is that a statistic person tries to describe the data like the average age of a corona virus fatalality. So statistics I do not think you have to develop software and know various programming languages. The focus is more on describing data and python libraries or R libraries are used to make chart and bar plot to make the data more transparent. Trying to find I guess important things about data like the average weight of corona virus patient, the amount of deaths in the USA things like that.

So while there is some programming in statistics occupations you do not need to as much programming as a software developer who has to know data structures, things like different types int,long short boolean, and algorithms like sorting searching through a list.


I hope my post makes sense.

Hi @homeylova223 . The answer to your question regarding programming really varies from job to job.

For some statisticians, programming or software development can play a much more important role in their jobs. This would especially apply to those involved in statistical software development and in some data science positions where the focus is on developing scalable solutions to large-scale data analysis.

For other positions, while programming still plays an important role in terms of design and analysis, conceptual knowledge of statistics as related to the specific job area plays greater importance. This especially applies to areas like biostatistics (my specialty). I personally spend a fair bit of time programming, but my programming work is primarily geared toward statistical analysis and design (with some simulation work), not specifically for developing software.

I hope this answers your question.