Needles & Grooves

I'm a data analyst, but I do a lot of programming. I call myself programming adjacent. I work 40/hrs a week and I'm mainly pulling data for financial and medical reporting. In order to get into this, I took SAS (Statistical Analysis System) programming for my Master's. It took my SAS experience + my master's to get where I am now (my master's is in statistics).

I show skills by making touch free (or minimal input) reporting. I find that one of my best skills is being able to explain technical things to non-tech people (especially doctors and nurses). I find that it's this bridge from the tech to the non-tech that most people need to develop more if they want to do data analysis.

Interesting. What advice would you give to a rookie who's trying to decide which type of programming they'll try to focus in on? Currently I'm learning Java, a little Python and some Swift for IPhone app programming. I don't know which one to focus in on. @nolalady

All of these posts are relevant to my interests as well...

Commenting to remind me to respond later when I have some time.

I'm a Full Stack Web Developer, started off doing Full Stack Web Development in Shanghai for a French Marketing Company, in China I was expected to work from 10am-10pm and on weeks where we had projects that were running up on a deadline we would be expected to work into well the night. However all that work got me where I am now and helped me improve my skills in ways working as a junior developer couldn't have.

Day to day depends, I work at a company that uses tickets, so when their is a issue, or feature request, a ticket comes in, I review it and if it seems like a good idea I do it and if it doesn't I close it with a detailed reason why.

I taught myself how to code python as I am very interested in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. The best way to show companies you have 'these skills' is by building things, build a blog, host it on AWS, get AWS certified, build personal projects,

for example I built a rap robot that can make it's own songs based on 10,000 rap songs I scrapped from a website, my next step is to implement machine learning into it so it can begin to make new songs based off patterns it sees within those 10,000 songs. I think most importantly you should at least have a built a portfolio that leads perspective companies to learn more about you.

I also teach at a computer science bootcamp to stay up to date with new frameworks, I taught myself the MERN stack just for this course, so finding fun things to do to stay up to date also helps you in your career.

If you ever have any specific questions don't hesitate to ask.

@tonythegamer After being in the IT workforce for over a decade, I find that as long as you have the logic down, everything else is just syntax. I learned SAS and that opened me up to learn SQL--which a language I use all the time--which got me interested in Python. Python is SQL with more words and less symbols, so if you understand how Python works, you can get SQL.

It doesn't matter what language you use, either you think like a programmer or you don't. I know people that have made full careers just tricking out Excel spreadsheets. It doesn't matter what language you learn as long as you understand how to talk to the computer. Since I do statistics, it's much more important for me to learn SAS, SPSS and R since they are the main stat packages.

@blissfullychaotic that's really cool. I might have questions for you later.

@blissfullychaotic If I have any more questions I can think of, I’ll be sure to ask’

I work with SQL & PL/SQL almost exclusively, with the occasional Unix needs. Pretty standard 40 hr work week with a monthly Saturday night patching event that I share between my co-workers so typically only work it once per quarter. There's a pretty big focus on work/life balance on my team which has been a serious plus and a good reason why I didn't jump ship when my company recently sold my division.

Started fresh out of college with an Information Systems bachelor degree with a focus on database development and that's pretty much what I've been doing. Showed my client team managers that I actually have a personality and can interact with the client so my role's shifted from heavy dev work to a 50/50 split between client work and dev. Learning curve was pretty steep at the beginning.

I think that was more my college's program (or lack thereof) more so than the job itself. Bought a few reference books and within a few months I was up to speed with what I needed to know. In terms of showing companies what skills you have, I'm not sure I have an answer to that.

I'm 80% sure I only got the job because the guy that interviewed me had sons going to the same high school that I graduated from.

I copied Tony's question here in case anyone else wants to give longer answers

@Djxfactor511 I got my first job because my husband's aunt worked for them. So much of life is about who you know, not just what you know.