Someone asked this on Quora: How Marketable is R programming?
Answer:
Let’s step back!
Why do you want to learn R? OR why do people learn R?
To solve problems that R can address. Right?
What problems do you have? OR what problems does your COMPANY have? OR what PROBLEMS your Dream company that you want to join have?
<< LIST THEM DOWN HERE>>
example:
- I want to predict customers that are going to churn next quarter.
- I want to identify Marketing channel that drove the revenue growth last quarter.
- etc..
What’s Next?
NOW, take all of these problems and find ways to solve them.
R may or may not help.
You could just do it in Excel. Then do that.
OR R helps you a little bit in the process but you need something else.
In some case, R is a perfect solution! Like building a model to predict customer churn!
So, What?
you see, learning R is important and you might get a job by showing that you have “R” chops but that will not be enough for career growth. You should be focused on learning to solve business problems using data. use R sometimes. use Excel sometimes. use Python sometimes. use SQL. use Tableau. use << INSERT A TOOL HERE>>. Learn them. Apply them. Figure out their strengths and weakness. BUT learn to use all of these technology platforms to solve problems! Solve problems that are thorny. Solve problems that move the business needle. Solve problems that get your bosses boss promoted.
If you do that, marketing your skills wouldn’t be a concern anymore.
It’s NOT easy. And it WILL take time.
TL;DR: Go for it! Learn R! But more importantly, learn to solve problems with data.