This summer, three incredible interns have joined us at Springbot HQ to gain experience in eCommerce marketing, machine learning, and big data. Our interns include Skyler Ruff on the Marketing Team and Roi Ceren and Kourtney Traina on the Development Team. We wanted to learn more about the unique backgrounds that brought them here and why they chose Springbot for their internship experience.
Check out the Q&A below to learn about our summer interns and the exciting projects they are working on!
Skyler Ruff: I am currently a second year student at the University of South Carolina! I plan on majoring in International Business and Marketing, while minoring in Spanish and Psychology. Because my family lives in Atlanta, I am living here for the summer and am interning for Springbot’s marketing department!
Kourtney Traina: I am working on a master’s in data science at Columbia University. I’m originally from Illinois, then moved around a bunch for school. Before Columbia, I studied Management Science in undergrad then went to law school. I realized while I was in law school that I was much more interested in data science, which is how I ended up in the program I’m in now. broadriver
Roi paddling down Broad River in Georgia
Roi Ceren: I am a Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of Georgia. I originally hail from Southern California, where my family still resides. My major interests, besides programming of course, largely revolve around cooking, but, like most developers, I game quite a bit! I am particularly fond of food tourism and spend an inordinate amount of time seeking out local eats when traveling. I love food tourism and travel, but don’t get much opportunity
Skyler: Working for Springbot this summer has been such an amazing opportunity to understand more about the marketing operations of a smaller company. I have absolutely loved getting to learn so much while working so closely with the marketing team here. I’ve been able to help complete a large array of tasks, including creating buyer personas; using programs such as Salesforce and Datanyze to find, aggregate, compare, and enter data; and researching the many possibilities that our company could use for content syndication.
Kourtney: My sister initially told me about Springbot. I looked up the company, and was impressed with the idea of a product that can help smaller businesses leverage some of the technology that giants in eCommerce have at their disposal. After speaking with Joe Reger, co-founder and CTO at Springbot, and doing more research on the company, I became convinced that this would be a great place to work and learn more about data science. This summer, I’ll be working on recommendations. The first few weeks, I’m working on SEO recos specifically, trying to find way to improve the current SEO recommendations and generate new ones that will be useful for the customer. As the summer progresses, I’ll be moving on to different types of recos.
Roi: I am interning at Springbot working with Nathan Ray to help jumpstart some machine learning algorithms for the (extremely) big data opportunities! Being close to Nathan for many years, I have had the opportunity to get an intimate understanding of the domain that Springbot works under, and we’ve excitedly discussed algorithms that can leverage all the information we have access to. Luckily, this has evolved into the internship I’ve taken, affording me a peek behind the curtain and the opportunity to practice my machine learning background in real-world settings with impossibly large data. Of course, a major perk is all the awesome people I’ve met that work here!
Kourtney: Saxon, I imagine. He seems the type.
Roi: Saxon is quiet and deliberate enough to either be Batman or a Bond villain. I may never know which is really the case, but it’s definitely either one or the other.
Skyler and Dani meet Baton Bob on Food Truck Day!
Skyler: After I finish my internship with Springbot, I will be studying abroad in San José, Costa Rica with USC’s
Spanish Immersion program. I have never been to that part of the world, and I am beyond excited to get to live there for six weeks. After that, I will return to USC early to help out with fall recruitment for my sorority.
I am so glad that Springbot was such a big part of my summer as it has been so amazing to meet its awesome team and to be a part of such interesting projects!!
Interviewer’s note: Skyler left for her Costa Rica Spanish Immersion program earlier this month. We were extremely sad to say goodbye to her, but we’re proud of her and know she’s having fantastic adventures abroad!
Interested in joining our team? Take a look at our current openings in our Midtown Atlanta office!