SAS developer/programmer and SAS admin, both are different roles in the IT industry. There is no predefined path to become one yet usually as a normal trend people first work as SAS programmer and then once they have enough knowledge about SAS systems they switch to SAS Administration.
Though there are people who directly start as SAS administrator but having sas programming knowledge would always be a plus point to become expert SAS administrator.
SAS Programmers Vs SAS Developer
Many people get confused when they read SAS developer and SAS programmer. There is as such a difference between these two designations. Usually the naming conventions differ company-to-company. If I want to segregate developer and programmer then I would say, programmers work on Base SAS, macros, stored procedures, or they perform hard core programming tasks.
Whereas SAS developers are the ones who know Base SAS, macro and everything but they mostly work on tools like SAS EG projects, SAS DI Studio, Visual analytics/Viya, etc.
Skills required for SAS Programmer and SAS Admin
SAS Programmer: Base SAS, SAS EG, Macros, SAS Stored Procedures, SAS DI Studio, ETL, Data warehousing, etc.
SAS Administrator: Base SAS, Linux/AIX, Shell scripting, Windows, Third party software installations, Automation, etc.
Job Description: SAS Programmer vs Administrator
As stated these are two different roles so as are their day to day job responsibilities. Both the roles are pretty much in demand and high paying jobs. Let’s look at the actual job description of each one of them.
Job description for SAS programer/developer
- Design, develop, validate and document SAS programs to generate data listings for data review, create raw datasets and analysis datasets, analyse data; generate summary tables, figures and listings.
- Understand the data warehouse architecture and system and capable of performing integration of DWH to SAS modules & applications
- Design, Develop and Maintain SAS modules and performing root cause analysis for any functional failures
- Responsible for developing and maintaining dashboards & modules in SAS Visual Analytics
- Develop macros and automate complex reports with macro concepts like handling local / global variables, call routines, options like mprint, symbolgen etc.
- Optimize SAS codes using programming best practices like hashing, data _null_ statements etc.
- Use complex functions like intck, intnx, format, informat, index, scan etc.in day-to-day codings
- Experience in using Procs like proc SQL, proc transpose, proc report, proc means / summary, proc fcmp etc.
- Should read data from SQL server using pass-through query, ODBC etc.
- Understanding of the importance of inter-team collaboration in breaking down silos and achieving business results and the ability to lead employees from various functions to communicate, coordinate work across divisions, and collaborate in solving problems as one team
- Share and communicate complex ideas and information with diverse business units and audience
Experience Required :
- Relevant undergraduate degree or post-graduate qualification in Information systems, Statistics, Computer Science or a related field (preferred)
- strong technical experience in SAS
- Proven communication and documentation skills, including well-constructed technical documents and presentations for both specialist and non-technical audience
Job description for SAS Administrator
- You will work collaboratively with customers, analysts, developers, and implementation team members to deploy, manage, diagnose, debug, design, and prototype SAS and third-party enterprise class software systems.
- Install, administer, support, and maintain SAS Enterprise software and solutions
- Generate documentation for architecture, installation and on-going operational support of customer environments
- Communicate clearly and efficiently with internal and external stakeholders highlighting any risks or blockers with recommendations to remediate and work around identified issues
- Identify, design, and implement new initiatives designed to ensure long-term customer success and value
- Stay current on SAS offerings, technologies and industry trends
- Designs Solutions to Reduce the Operational and Management Complexity of the Platform.
- Designs, Implements, and Maintains Platform Security via Sas Metadata and Ibm Aix.
- Performs Platform Capacity Planning and Management.
- Serves as an Escalation Point for Escalated Production and/or Platform Issues.
- Executing Change Control and Promotions Activities.
- Establishes Best Practices and Guidelines for Usage of the Sas Platform.
- Manage and Track Sas Products Inventory and License Updates for Sas Servers and End Users.
- Establish Best Practices for Administering and Interpreting Sources of Data.
- Provide All Levels of Technical and Application Support; Incident Management (Level 1, 2 and 3); Address User, Application, and Data Issues.
- Manage the Configuration Support and Maintenance of the sas Platform.
- Working in shifts as per business demand.
We have tried to mention all the responsibilities as we can. You’ll see few or all the things from the list, or some extra additional things as job descriptions solely depend on the company and current requirement.
Programmer or administrator, both the skill sets are great, relevant with todays trend and they are in demand. You can choose any field as per your own interest. In case if you don’t like your current role, you’ll have tons of opportunities to change your roles going forward.
For more understanding about the roles we suggest to go through the current job openings on LinkedIn.
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