SAS Institute Reviews

Pros

Great place to work, good compensations

Cons

Being an R&D center the product life cycles are slow.

Pros

A lot to learn..
HIgly motivated team
great team work..
Fun at work

Cons

No goodies given...
Cofee machine disgusting...

Advice to Senior Management

You are the best..

Pros

Hugely intellectually stimulating, leading edge in many ways, good people making good product work, rather than good people hiding behind vapourware.

Cons

Al big companies have the same cons, but generally SAS is a very good place to work.

Pros

If you live close enough to work on campus (Cary, NC) then SAS is a great place to work, one of the best. 4 day cares, car wash, fitness center, health center, dry cleaner, barber, masseuse, multiple cafeterias and lots of other perks make working in Cary amazing, and people in those positions rarely leave. The benefits package on it's own is pretty good. After your first full year employees get a few thousand dollars from profit sharing. Once you're in you can move laterally within the company fairly easily. Everyone but the sales organization clocks 35 hours a week. Longtime SAS customers/user are loyal and intelligent.

Cons

Benefits are being trimmed down and are now on par with any large company. Regional offices are "out of the good-old-boy network" and don't have the perks that make SAS the "#1 Place to Work" (a la Fortune). Dr. Goodnight has let others take control of key areas of the company and they're taking a once great private company that cares about it's customers and employees down the path of all the other publicly traded companies. Gone are the days of caring about customer satisfaction and success. Sell and move on, sell and move on.

Advice to Senior Management

The sales organization is now like every large company expanding too fast for the rest of the company to keep up. Outselling the ability to deliver is going to destroy the loyal customer base and sour the good name of SAS. R&D's 35 hour work week is going to further destroy SAS. Without new and improved products and solutions SAS will continue to lose market share in all areas. I suggest moving R&D of new products and solutions outside of Cary and beef up PSD and the non existent partner channel.

Pros

The company truly values employees and customers. The commitment to work/life balance comes from the top down and they believe in it. As a result, employees treat each other fairly and well. There is a tremendous sense of camaraderie. And the benefits really are top notch.

Cons

Nobody ever leaves, so it can be hard to move up. There are a lot of smart people there, and a lot of hard working people, but also a lot of people who don't seem to accomplish or contribute much other than add to the process. The "no layoffs" mentality, for good or ill, means that SAS never undergoes the clean up of the dead wood that routinely happens at other companies. The culture of consensus means that nearly anyone can derail a project, even if it has little or nothing to do with their area of responsibility.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to be able to add headcount to grow. You can't both add new talent and keep headcount static unless you move out some underperformers. This is causing you to stagnate.

Pros

Good technology. Good work life balance. If you are a programmer, technical person or an SE it is a great place to work. Technical and sales development training is encouraged.
Good benefits and 5-10%+ company contributions into profit sharing, but no equity or options.
For some,. it was great opportunity to build a new business, or handle multiple roles with plenty of resources to support you.

Cons

As a sales person it was incredibly difficult unless you had an account with a large installed base. During my 7 year career there I saw sales teams in regions turn over 4X. You get 2 years to make your numbers, and then get kicked out. Many people got frustrated and left before that point.
Product is very difficult/complex to sell with very long sales cycles.
Goodnight hates to pay sales people, so comp plans change regularly. He is surrounded with a cadre of "yes" men and woman who are so anxious to stay on the "gravy train" (sort of) that don't question him nor challenge him.
Also few savvy tech people stay longer than 5 years, so the company has a very, very insular culture.
Goodnight likes to acquire failing technology companies on the cheap, their management who stays has an out sized influence on SAS for a period of time before they become assimilated.
Great at slick marketing, but content light and very, very insular group.

Advice to Senior Management

Why bother ? Well Goodnight needs to build real depth into his management team and deligate real authority. Outsides are amazed at the level of control he retains.

Pros

People are truly valued
Benefits package is best
Work/life balance is encouraged
Remote opportunities available
Privately owned

Cons

Complex organization creates some unneeded internal competition and confusion to clients
Sales culture can be over the top

Pros

Great Place to work for

Cons

Not much professional growth but you will have your job

Pros

Great benefits
Beautiful campus and excellent cafeteria
Many people are very nice and work very hard and efficiently
Dr. Goodnight is an excellent President/CEO

Cons

Some departments are way too close and old timer-ish. You will not get that next promotion or be able to move within the company if you are not part part of the click'.
A VP also takes it too personally when someone wants out of that person's division.

The HR department totally supports the management and not the employee.

Salaries (with the exception of SALES) are much lower than the industry standard.

I don't know who is working the 35 hour work week I hear about, but it isn't people I know.

Many people have their spouse working at SAS and this can present many conflicts. Especially if you discover 'an affair'. Also if a problem arises with one spouse the other can hold it against you.

Advice to Senior Management

I have no advice except maybe not allowing a certain level employee to have a spouse working also at SAS.

Pros

office is nice, there's plenty of food

Cons

a lot people resign frequently, they do not have a system, they do not counteroffer

Advice to Senior Management

have a system where in your employees get equal benefits