502 – Learning Beyond the Introductory Statistics Classroom
“Training Wheels� vs. “Racing Wheels� for the Pharmaceutical Industry
YuTing Tian
Vertex Pharmaceutical
Within the pharmaceutical industry there is a constant need for qualified and skilled and professionals at all levels. On one hand, there is never enough highly skilled senior Statistical Programmers; on the other hand, the industry is constantly changing so tasks that used to require senior programmers can more and more often be performed by junior programmers, leaving senior staff with more time to devote to the most complex problems. As the industry changes, senior managers must adapt to not only recruit quality programmers, but also create the environment that ensures these programmers are motivated to learn and advance both as individuals and as important team members. This paper was written by an entry level programmer and a Director of Statistical Programming to demonstrate how to fuse the experience that Senior Level Programmers have with the talent, new ways of thinking and technical skills that Junior Programmers bring to the table. The origins of this paper go back to PharmaSUG 2019, when the Director of Programming sat in on a presentation by a student who was looking for a job in the pharmaceutical industry. This paper has two goals. The first goal is to lay out a common perspective using a framework of three aspects that statistical programmers and experienced statistical programmer managers face. The second goal is to illustrate some example problems and examine how we try to solve these problems for statistical programmers across over different levels - from junior to manager.