Thread regarding SAS Institute layoffs

I knew engineers at SAS who could not reverse a linked list. Who could not compress data. Who could not even use Google or StackOverflow to learn how to do these things.

Nowadays, if you want an algorithm, the AI will just sp-t it out for you. Today’s AIs are better than some of the engineers I knew at SAS.

I also knew engineers at SAS who were brilliant — better than me, and certainly better than the AIs. These engineers were good enough to design large systems, and find bugs in the code an AI generates.

That’s how this will eventually shake out. The poor engineers, the ones who are just “coders”, will be replaced by AIs — because “coding” is no longer a marketable skill.

The best engineers won’t write much code at all. They’ll design the system, supervise the AIs constructing it, and find their bugs.

We’ll still need our best engineers. The rest will level up, or find a new line of work.

@2dd - what you say is true. Engineering jobs are NOT safe!

@2dd incorrect. AI will change things. But anyone who thinks it will replace engineers in the foreseeable future is probably not very technical.

Engineering jobs are not safe !

With the corporate embrace of AI and the hiring of prompt-jockeys, there is no longer any need for an engineer. That's an antiquated term for an antiquated practice. What is left to engineer? Business leaders can now orchestrate the creation of complex software with a small pool of prompt-jockeys. I even hear there are now prestigious high-school level certificates for prompt creation. If you holding tightly to your old ways and have not updated yourself, you'd better start working on version 2.0.

Engineering jobs are not safe !

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/21/amazon-cut-thousands-of-engineers-in-its-record-layoffs-filings-show.html

May SAS never have a mass layoff like Verizon!!!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/why-verizon-is-firing-13-000-employees-in-the-company-s-own-words/ar-AA1QPyTZ?ocid=winp2fptaskbar&cvid=a8693e164b5a4393e30d964fbaa73ed6&ei=10

@1cg So 4 very small layoffs, 1 mid sized layoff plus the “secret” layoffs that nobody has any details on.

Sounds like a true hellscape compare to other tech companies.

~400 in China + ~250 in Global Sales + ~100 in Retail + ~50 Testers + ~120 in PSD + Education and elsewhere + the “stealth layoffs” that never get publicized. The total is easily over 1,000.

@19h I’m mostly with you on that however Beijing was not small and was certainly a layoff. There may have been hidden reasons for that one but 5% layoff nonetheless.

@15n SAS has still not had significant layoffs…

@OP given that a quick job search for skills knowing SAS produces sparse results, I expect the cuts to keep coming. R and Python are usually listed, but SAS is only listed for actuarial and healthcare roles for the most part. It’s sad to see, knowing SAS used to be a scarce skill… and jobs in lots of industries where in abundance.

@10f um no, AS was a hot mess of a liability.

"even with a Viya success, it is possible that layoffs would be just as frequent in order to make the company leaner and even more profitable."

Correct. Using that same logic, it is also correct that Viya's failure would mean more cuts than the conjectured cuts under the hypothetical Viya success.

Viya's failure is the reality we have to live with. Trying to soft pedal that is like selling ice to an Eskimo.

@15g That's possible, but unlikely. SAS never had significant layoffs until revenues declined vs. expenses. As long as the decline continues, so will the layoffs.

We're about to hit the holidays, though -- when other companies do layoffs, but SAS usually does not. Hopefully the rest of the year is kind to everyone.

@14k >...Had Viya been a success, SAS layoffs would be less or non-existent

Alternatively, even with a Viya success, it is possible that layoffs would be just as frequent in order to make the company leaner and even more profitable.

"I merely called out your “Had Viya been a success, this site would have way less traffic.” as meaningless and nonsensical drama."

Had Viya been a success, SAS layoffs would be less or non-existent. And that means people would have much less incentive to be chattering on this layoff site. This is just basic human nature and business and should not have to be spelled out. There is an old saying about not seeing the forest for the trees. A good forester should know better!

@127 It’s not the mention of Viya that drives traffic to this site, but its failure.

As @117 said, layoffs are caused when revenues don’t meet expenses.

If Viya had increased revenues, SAS would not need layoffs, so would have no reason for traffic on this layoff site.

It’s unconstructive to call @117’s statements “sad”, “meaningless”, and “nonsensical”. Name-calling is not a rational argument.

@11q not excusing SAS revenue mediocrity at all. You are putting words in my mouth via sad deflection.

I merely called out your “Had Viya been a success, this site would have way less traffic.” as meaningless and nonsensical drama.

"They seem to have plenty of traffic without Viya to blame.

Take a peek at Teradata, Salesforce, take your pick…."

I took your advice and picked Salesforce. They are experiencing revenue growth.

Regarding Teradata, they are not experiencing revenue growth. If you feel that other company's revenue mediocrity somehow excuses SAS' revenue mediocrity, we are different so let's agree to disagree.

Viya's underwhelming revenue production correlates to higher traffic on this site. It is understandable why those who hold Viya close to their heart dislike that.

@117 “ Had Viya been a success, this site would have way less traffic.”

You have clearly not browsed this site in other company sections. They seem to have plenty of traffic without Viya to blame.

Take a peek at Teradata, Salesforce, take your pick….

SAS isn’t special or somehow different.

@vb apparently if the head of R&D is promoted to a SVP role he is not going to be leaving… he will just stay around to be the hatchet man of the middle management and cause chaos among the divisions. It’s very interesting that he seems to have lasted longer than many other of his predecessors.

Unfortunately historically speaking, based on previous reorgs there will be groups that are not named in said reorg email that ‘fall through the cracks’ and will be in limbo until they are placed… of course in the hopes that there will those that jump ship and leave of their own volition. Those that hang around waiting will either be demoted or told they have to apply for other positions to keep a job.

As long as revenue remains flat more layoffs will happen. The pace and velocity of layoffs are tied to expenses. When expenses rise, there iare few better options than cutting headcount. Viya was touted as being the next big thing in terms of revenue generation. The price of labor is rising faster and revenue is flat. No bueno. Had Viya been a success, this site would have way less traffic.

Give how Open Source was being embraced by the marketplace while Viya was being ignored, did soul searching talks by SAS senior management occur about folding Viya?

The most beautiful horse drawn carriage had declining interest in the world that was shifting rapidly towards the automobile. History can teach us so much if we don't ignore it

Had a kid in our department who nodded his head “yes” so much, he was nicknamed “The Bobble Head”.

He’s in management now and being groomed to be an on stage personality.

Now we can all clearly see the devastating impacts of A.S.'s departure!

Our only hope is to offer him a blank check and pray that he accepts our forgiveness and can lead this once outstanding Institute back to prosperity.

Third party here - I was punished. It must have been my delivery or flaws as a human being. Maybe they didn’t like the cut of my gib. Give me a break.

In my experience, the people who were listened to had big personalities and sniffed the right arses. They were often wrong, but never in doubt.

@z3 “ To say that this is “hindsight” is untrue. Many of us saw the problems, suggested improvements, and got punished for our advice. The people who had good careers at SAS were people who said “yes”.”

I never saw people get punished for advice…. Sounds like two side to that “story”

I’ve had a long and successful technical career at SAS and am far cry from “yes” man. Lots of other people fit that bill as well.

I could name countless disruptor types who have excelled. Maybe it was your “advice” or the way you delivered it.

Or maybe you are sensitive when your advice isn’t followed. How exactly were you punished?

As @wf says, the technical problems of SAS long predate Viya. They date back to the early 1990s, when the success of MVA was followed by the disaster of Version 7. SAS has had few successful innovations since then.

In the early 2000s, having achieved horizontal dominance, SAS correctly tried to build vertical solutions. But most leaders of those efforts had little technical expertise. They neglected architecture and presided over “Feature Factories”, with little success.

To say that this is “hindsight” is untrue. Many of us saw the problems, suggested improvements, and got punished for our advice. The people who had good careers at SAS were people who said “yes”.

To say that “even the best management” could not succeed is equally untrue. Of course cloud/SaaS, big data, etc. are difficult challenges. But other companies are succeeding in these markets.

For its first couple of decades, SAS was an R&D-driven company. Then we neglected R&D, and became a sales-driven company. We had good salespeople — but even the best salespeople need good products to sell.

even the best management wouldn't have been able to navigate all the disruptions from cloud/SaaS, big data, hyperscalers, open source, LLM. but who knows what happens in the future.

@ww “Perfect time for SAS to pivot instead of doubling down on Viya.”

Hindsight is simple. But future people always claims things are obvious at the time they were happening.

"by the time Viya initiated, open source was gaining a substantial foothold."

Perfect time for SAS to pivot instead of doubling down on Viya.

History lesson: that mistake will likely prove to be the mistake that was the beginning of the end for SAS.

… clear-cut and flexible architecture, …

It seems some people here need a detailed history lesson. Sure, revenue is critical and SAS along with many similar enterprise software companies could have and could still do a better job at building products that actually sell. Since they have matured, this also includes several of the major cloud players.

20 to 25 years ago SAS had a well-established MVA Base platform architecture that products were developed directly upon/within. For example: add-on modules like SAS/Stat, SAS/ETS, SAS/OR, SAS/CONNECT, etc. But revenue growth was SLOWING because SAS was beginning to saturate it’s market for Data Management and Analytics tools. Also, almost no one was anticipating the nascent open-source movement nor the impact it would grow to have on SAS, first with R,, the Hadoop Ecosystem, etc, and later the Python libraries. This didn’t have a huge impact on SAS revenue prior to 2005, but by the time Viya initiated, open source was gaining a substantial foothold.

In a quest to create new revenue opportunities, between 2002 and 2006, SAS began to build solutions based products for various industries, finance, risk, human resources, oil and gas, etc. Some of these solutions dated back a decade earlier, yet with the rapid growth of the worldwide web, that SAS would have to take a new approach in building these solutions, where major software components within a particular solution or group thereof would not be necessarily written in C Running within the traditional MVA architecture. R&D developed IOM To provide externalized remote APIs that would allow language environments outside of SAS running in MVA to execute various data management and analytics capabilities already within MVA and return results.

The rise of the Java enterprise ecosystem enabled much of this work and considerable hiring for areas that SAS was new to. This is mostly of the context for the duplication of effort, difficulty in establishing a clear-cut inflexible architecture, organizational bloat, etc. that my other posts have addressed.

As for the principal architect of Viya and the history behind his efforts, there are tens of posts on umpteen earlier threads that explain why that was the case. The genesis of Viya (which again is an architecture and branding umbrella term, not a specific product) was in hindsight, significantly the culmination of two prior decades of less than ideal management and architectural decisions.

For the many reasons stated in various threads and posts over, SAS was unable to grow commensurate with the greatest historical growth period in data and analytics product demand, namely the past 20 years. The story is much bigger than Viya.

"Going back 20-25 years, had SAS executed on building a more competent organization and optimized architecture, there is a decent likelihood the company’s product trajectory, including what eventually became “Viya” would have and continue to be more promising."

Going back 20-25 years ago, SAS built products that sold. Sadly, Viya was not one of them. If the stories about OS storming out of the room because he did not like and act on customer feedback are true stories, perhaps that had more impact on Viya's trajectory than "optimized architecture".

Lessons are seldom learned without honest self reflection.

@vf this isn’t a guessing game. If you have something to say then say it.

"the pre-Viya duplication of effort, management structure, deficient architectural development, etc. led to challenges with subsequent execution'

The biggest challenge is building what customers want. Cool only counts when it sells.

“If I ever lost my job, I’d have a new one before my head hit the pillow that night!”

Paraphrased from someone you all know and love. I’ll let you guess who.

For those asking

“For those of us who’ve retired or otherwise departed from SAS, what were the key elements of the email or SWW article that’s sparked this discussion?”

A Big R&D Reorg was announced using vague, confusing, buzzwords.

Anecdotal history of these things tends to signal the beginning of the end for the head of R&D

@tw

The implication, which apparentyly I failed to explain clearly, is that the pre-Viya duplication of effort, management structure, deficient architectural development, etc. led to challenges with subsequent execution — beginning as early as 2002-2005.

Put more succinctly, many of SAS’ current woes are the directly result of longstanding, pre-Viya organizational maladies. Going back 20-25 years, had SAS executed on building a more competent organization and optimized architecture, there is a decent likelihood the company’s product trajectory, including what eventually became “Viya” would have and continue to be more promising.

@ka .......someone has influence over this site - if anything get posted that "someone" disagrees.......that posting will disappear......don't expect the SWW article to stay up