Pharma SAS programmers, how did you get your first Pharma job?

[Quentin]

Over the years I've seen plenty of discussion threads about "how do I get a start in Pharma programming?"  This made me wonder, maybe it would be helpful to have a thread where actual Pharma programmers describe how they got their first SAS programming jobs in Pharma.

Perhaps touching on points like:

• What was your first job title / role?
• Were you working for a pharmaceutical company or CRO?
• Were you an experienced SAS programmer before you started programming in Pharma?
• How did you find out about the job opening (job posting, recruiter, conference networking...)
• Did you complete any Pharma-specific training classes/certifications prior to your first job (e.g. CDISC training, or SAS certification for pharma programming)

And of course, feel free to share any tips for people looking for their first Pharma job, whether they are experienced SAS programmers or newbies. I've always heard it's notoriously difficult to get your first Pharma job.

[FreelanceReinh]

It's about two decades ago that I, a mathematician, transitioned from direct marketing (entry-level position as an analyst, heavily using SAS/Base, also some SAS/STAT) to pharmaceutical research in Germany. The crucial bridging step in between was an intermediate job at a university where I worked on a biostatistical research project (gene technology in agriculture).

With the combined eight (4,5+3,5) years experience in SAS programming I was hired by a medium-sized CRO whose job advertisement ("Biometrician") I found in a national newspaper in 2005. My job title was "Statistician", but I often worked in the Statistical Programmer's role, while the Biostatisticians in those projects were on the sponsors' side (big pharma). I had no pharma-specific training prior to that job, nor any SAS certification. This was before the full advent of CDISC standards (which I had to deal with only several years later, in my first freelance project starting in 2010).

Other possible intermediate steps towards a SAS programmer's position in clinical research may include:

• a job at a service provider using SAS that is active in both clinical research and some other area (e.g. health information technology) which is closer to one's current experience or education (so there might be a chance of a job change within the company)
• similarly, a position in a different area of the pharma business, e.g. IT, non-clinical/preclinical research, animal health or modelling and simulation of PK/PD (pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics)
• working in another health-related field like biotechnology, epidemiology, medical devices, diagnostics, psychological research, studies of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as surgery, or health economics.

It is sad (for us SAS fans) that the importance of SAS in clinical research appears to be decreasing. So, one should not ignore the other software tools used in "data science" nowadays, such as R.

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