Data Science Intern Review

I have previously done three internships across several industries. The internship at King was the best one overall. The company lives up to its "Humble and Open", "Fun and Friendly" values: people are extremely pleasurable to work with. The work environment is top notch: no face time, free breakfast, free drinks, free onsite gym, mature and solid infrastructure and tools.

People were very supportive. In the beginning, it can be difficult as the internship programme is not as structured as in big corporates or your typical consulting or banking company. However, once I navigated past the uncertainty and proved that I could deliver good work, colleagues started trusting me with more responsibility and I felt much more involved in their own work and not just my internship project.

My manager was always available to answer my questions and offer advice. We had weekly one-to-one meetings where we could discuss progress and plan ahead. My manager was located in a different location so I could not physically ask questions whenever I ran into difficulties. However, there were plenty of colleagues and senior people who were always willing to help and in general as it befits a technology company, there are HipChat channels where questions are typically resolved within a day.

I was given a research project that I was responsible for. This ensured that I could explore different questions and make myself as busy as I wished. Overall, I have found that obtaining insights and solving the business problems took 70% of the time and kept me busy and intellectually engaged. The remaining 30% required writing up results, communicating them to stakeholders and presenting. This portion of the work generally feels less busy.

My internship-long research project was an actual business problem to which nobody in the company had a definitive answer. In this sense, I felt that the company trusted me with a lot of responsibility. Upon completing, I was able to present my results to about 20 people and obtain feedback. I was able to propose future work on this issue and the company was receptive and willing to integrate my analysis into the product.

The most important skill I learnt is working in a mid-size technology company shipping product to hundreds of millions of people. That was very exciting. It was the kind of learning one cannot get by sitting in a classroom: learning how business and technology / game divisions interact and how data is used in a commercial environment to improve product. At the same time, King is more a game company than a technology company. In that regard, many data scientists and engineers are at the service of the games, which may limit technical sophistication of their work.

The atmosphere at King is generally very positive. The company went through a half-decade of hypergrowth and was recently acquired by Activision Blizzard. There are people in the company who joined it as a startup and are perhaps nostalgic about the old days. As the company matures and changes, one can sense some discontent around the office. However, it varies a lot by division. Newer teams are generally much more upbeat and optimistic about the company's future. At the end of the day, it does feel like an entertainment company and nobody was grumpy or angry during my internship.

The internship was organised very well. Almost every week there was a talk from senior leadership, from CEO to Head of Studio. In addition, both at the beginning and the end of the programme, interns from all office locations are flown to one site where they can meet each other and have fun together. The company organised dinners, free drinks, fun interactive sessions and even bowling games.

Function-specific training generally happened on the job and through performing actual tasks. In addition, the company organised various personal training sessions such as working on personal charisma, self-awareness and so on. The company also offers free online courses on programming, marketing and many other things. There are even language courses, but I did not have the time to delve into them.

In my opinion, employment prospects within King can vary a lot depending on which team one is offered to join. Some teams are very exciting and quickly growing, whereas others are more in a 'maintenance mode'. Overall, I would say it is a great place to start a career. King positions itself as an entrepreneurial company so there is scope to grow if one is proactive and joins a highly visible team where work can be highly valuable or revenue-generating.

The social scene was amazing. Firstly, the size of the group was relatively small allowing us to get to know each other really well. Furthermore, many people were from outside the UK but open-minded and super friendly. We hung out together on the weekends and in some weeks almost every day after work as well. There were many who were always keen on going out or eating out and we always had a good laugh together. It is fair to say that many of us will stay friends long after the programme.