Wouldn’t that money be better spend buying off the grandpas and grandmas?
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I knew many "high end" people at SAS. A few are still there.
For years, SAS was the best employer in North Carolina, and one of the best on the East Coast. So we could attract "high end" people who wanted to live in NC, or needed to be here for family reasons.
Critically, we could also attract a "high end" group of statisticians and mathematicians. Those folks were the reason SAS did so well for so long. We could attract them because such specialized people don't have a huge set of job opportunities.
In general, though, we could not attract "high end" people for financial reasons. SAS did not pay enough and did not offer equity. So most "high end" people could do better financially at other companies.
That's still true today. For this reason, I don't believe the talent is similar at SAS and big tech companies. If I were a "high end" job applicant, with offers from Google and SAS, I'd have an easy decision.
@f1 “ Yet the "high end" will continue to quietly do the work of the "mediocre and less than", correct their mistakes, wipe their noses, change their diapers... ASK ME HOW I KNOW”
Isn’t that cute. You claim to have never met a high end at SAS and yet in the same breathe seem to imply you are one. The only one apparently.
@f1 If you haven't met single high end then you probably just aren’t in the right circles. Or don’t know what it actually looks like.
They are small in numbers but exist. That is kind of the definition of high end.
If your view of Google, Microsoft, etc is that it is all high end then you have never worked there.
I have worked at both of the named places and SAS.
The distribution of high end was not significantly different. There were certainly more at those places. But they also had far more employees.
The high ends were far outnumbered by mediocrity and that is ok and normal whether it be SAS or elsewhere.
In over ten years at SAS I've yet to meet a single director or principal architect that wasn't "mediocre and less than". SAS never paid enough to attract "high end" talent. SAS was the place for career-minded, talented people who wanted to go home at the end of the day and didn't want to live at work, or suffer the startup grindset. You don't believe you're going to be able to wish this "high end" talent into existence in SAS's past, do you? They would have to already be working at the company for them to be the people you think AI is going to superpower. They're not.
Here's the more likely scenario: AI will make the "mediocre and less than" appear to be more capable, but it will never be able to replace the "high end" you're talking about. Because it makes the "mediocre and less than" appear to be more capable, it will be more difficult to distinguish between them and the "high end". Yet the "high end" will continue to quietly do the work of the "mediocre and less than", correct their mistakes, wipe their noses, change their diapers... ASK ME HOW I KNOW. My suggestion to replace the "mediocre and less than" with agentic AI is the only thing that breaks the vicious cycle of rewarding mediocrity and punishing competence and accomplishment with more work. You're welcome.
@e8 “ All of those positions can and should be filled by agentic AI.”
That makes absolutely no sense.
AI will replace the mediocre and less than. AI will not replace the high end. It will amplify the high end.
We are already seeing that at SAS and elsewhere.
If "agentic AI" is the solution SAS offers its customers, SAS should put its money where its mouth is. All of those positions can and should be filled by agentic AI. With agreement from all parties to actually do what the AI tells them, SAS may actually benefit. Revenues up and everyone gets a raise and a bonus. Show the world how it's done, SAS. Impress us.
To attract top talent
Is non-AI money actually going to attract top talent to develop and maintain large legacy code bases written in C with proprietary libraries? Maybe to code on top of, between, or against these systems and applications but, even then, they’re going to have to spend a great deal of time learning how this older technology works.
Then again, with the tech job market the way it is, maybe there are A-players looking for work.
@ah I can almost guarantee that those levels are not being replaced by cheaper workers. If anything, they are being paid more than current employees at the current market rate. To attract top talent, we need to pay the big bucks or we will remain stagnant without any new or fresh ideas.
@OP moving deck chairs
Wouldn’t that money have been better spent paying grandpas and grandmas what they were worth?
SAS could retain experienced talent. Instead, they replace it with cheaper workers — and get what they pay for.