Careers in Statistical Software Cheryl Pammer Minitab Inc. cpammer@minitab.com

About Me Education Minitab Experience (21 Years) Other Experience BSE Mathematics, Truman State University MS Statistics, Penn State PhD Coursework, Penn State Minitab Experience (21 Years) Currently User Experience Designer and Technical Training Specialist Previously Technical Support, Information Development, and Quality Assurance Other Experience Biometrics Research at Merck Research Labs Statistics Instructor at Penn State Statistical consultant for Vespa Labs and Penn State Department of Food Science

Benefits of Working in Statistical Software The reach of your work extends far beyond your organization Great variety in projects Software companies generally allow great flexibility and nice benefits You will obtain skills transferable to other industries and jobs

Statisticians at Minitab

Example Problem Problem Customer needs to design an experiment for a process improvement project, but doesn’t know where to start. Customer Has a quality improvement role in financial, manufacturing, or healthcare industry May be math-phobic. Greek letters and symbols like < can be intimidating. Has to do a little data analysis; but will never be a data analyst.

Technical Project Manager Define problem Understand customer Develop solution ideas Prototype Obtain feedback Repeat

User Experience Design Create the user experience Design inputs and outputs Fill in all details Deliver detailed design document

Statistical R&D Maintain statistical credibility Determine statistical details Should we offer Plackett-Burman designs, classical 2K designs, or definitive screening designs? Do these designs have enough power? How many replicates should we require? Which assumptions in the analysis are critical? What method should we use to fit the model?

Software Engineering, R&D, QA Implement design Software R&D: Optimize the algorithm Quality Assurance: Verify results are correct and error conditions are handled

Information Development Take highly technical information and make it consumable by a non-technical audience

Product Marketing Promote products online and print Provide webinars to get users started with new products

Technical Support Provide phone and email support: Why is Fit Quadratic unavailable? Why does this not match my text book? Why is alpha set at 0.1?

Training and Mentoring Create relevant examples Teach concepts Analyze customer’s data

Business Development and Market Research Develop new business Find existing customers that are likely to be interested in new products Create new product opportunities

Skills Needed Solid foundation in statistics and data analysis An interest in developing software solutions Exceptional communication skills Creative problem-solving ability Strong computer skills, understanding of data sources is very helpful