Internship Lineup: Jashwin Acharya

Tell me about your internship! What are your responsibilities? What projects are you working on over the summer?

My job this summer at Electronic Arts (EA) focuses on the game “Madden”, which is a pretty popular sports game. My job is to work on the various connectivity issues that Madden players might encounter when they try to log onto the game. I am working with a web service that logs all of these errors so that the EA team can run data analysis to examine the issues and diagnose them so that future players don’t run into the same issues in the future.

What is the most important thing you have learned thus far?

The most important thing I have learned is understanding how to work in large team environments while using AGILE practices. You need to understand how a scrum sprint works and what you need to do in order to accomplish your tasks in the given time. Most sprints last two weeks. You need to learn who are the key stakeholders you need to work with in order to finish your assignments. Communication in a large team environment is very important. 

How did your research and school work prepare you for this role?

All of the classes I have taken at the University of Minnesota have required some sort of team project. So I had the experience of managing joint tasks between two or three people. Communication is a huge factor in success, so it was nice to have that experience before I went to EA. Stuff like that really translates well into the real world. I have had very similar conversations with the people I am working with now. 

How did you become interested in data science and your specific areas of interest?

My interests were developed in my previous work. After I finished my undergraduate degree in computer science at the U of M, I worked at Medtronic as a software engineer for three years. During that time, Medtronic had a data science mentorship program which gave a high-level overview of theoretical machine learning. I also worked on a project with a senior researcher at Medtronic in that area. That really sparked my interest in data science and it was the key reason that I joined the Data Science M.S. program. Also, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) methods are some of the most in-demand skills in the job market right now, so it seemed like a good career move for me. 

What are your future career goals? How has this position impacted your goals?

My future career goals are to continue working in the gaming industry, if possible. Gaming is something I have enjoyed since I was a child and is the primary reason for me choosing to pursue a Software Engineering career. With that said, in the future I would like to slowly transition away from pure Software Engineering roles to more Machine Learning specific roles and learn more about the application of Machine Learning Engineering skills in the gaming industry. My current position as a Software Engineering Intern at EA has provided me with many networking opportunities to interact with people in EA’s Search for Extraordinary Experiences Division (SEED), which is the applied research division of the company. I am quite interested in the work that the department does, particularly in the areas of computer vision and animation, and I hope to contribute to their work at some point in the future. 

What advice would you give to someone pursuing a similar internship in the future?

Getting an interview alone can be quite challenging.. Make sure you have a good resume and have it reviewed by a bunch of people, preferably Industry or Academic professionals, before you apply for a job. Your resume should reflect the job requirements for the position you are applying for, and if you put something on your resume, make sure you are well versed in that area. Companies like EA really grill you on those skills during the interview process. 

Once you get the job, the best thing to do is ask a lot of questions. When you are working on a large team at a big company, you will be working on a massive code base, like 10 million+ lines of code. Understanding how to navigate a code base like that and understanding the software architecture takes a lot of time and patience. Asking questions helps a lot. Learning to be inquisitive and patient with yourself is very important when working at a large tech company like EA.