Kickstart: from intern to rock star

enlighten you about this topic as I am one of these people.

I started my IT career at Playtech in September 2020 via the 3-month internship program. I was hoping that this would be a good opportunity to learn what it meant to work in an IT company. As a last year undergraduate student in university, I was terrified to start straight away with a full contract in a real IT position, so an internship seemed like a great way to blend into the mystical IT world.The start of my internship was quite slow, but the list of responsibilities grew bigger as the weeks passed. As I was the only intern in my small team of three, I was required to do the daily work right away. My work included lot of communication and handling a great deal of game issues. The amount of information I received and needed to handle might have been overwhelming for me if I didn’t have such a good mentor; she was patient and took the time to explain what needed to be done. At first, I was surprised how much work was needed to get one game live in one market. When you needed to do it on several markets with many games at the same time it was even more challenging. 

During the internship, I had the opportunity to talk with lots of people from different Playtech offices around the Europe – UK, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Cyprus etc. I was taking part of the weekly meetings with our partners from Netherlands and Italy. It was eye-opening to have the chance to learn and observe and over time more and more to take part of the work.

The other interns who started their positions at the same time in Playtech were also a little overwhelmed at the start, so we supported one another. Our Teams chat was quite lively! Since Covid was happening, we didn’t have many opportunities to get together in real life, but we did have one getaway to adventure park in Tartu.
It was nice to see the faces of fellow interns and even make some new acquaintances.

Of course, everything comes to an end. When it was time for the end of the internship, I had already a great overview of my work as a coordinator of the regulated markets. As the internship was wrapping up, I was really excited to hear that the project manager of my team wanted me to continue with a real contract for the new year. You might wonder what changed after that. At first it seemed like nothing: I continued my usual work using what I had learned during the internship; however, I was feeling more confident every day.

During the first month of my „real job“, I was put in charge of the most time critical and important projects that our team handled. Even as I was doing university and work at the same time, my manger didn’t doubt my abilities to lead these projects. Not going to a lie: it was really hard at first. As I thought I was finally understanding most knowledge needed for my job, I still found something new every day. It went on like that for months. At one point I thought that if there ever would be a day when I could do my job without constantly asking for help. But then I realized that asking for help isn’t a bad thing. This realization saved me so much time and made the learning process much easier.

Almost a year later I reached the pro league. I handled everything without sweating anymore and was as confident as ever: I felt like the Mick Jagger of the IT world. I was empowered to improve my work and the day-to-day process. But my path doesn’t end here. Growing as a person often means growing out of your position too. Eventually the next step was to become an even better version of myself. My next big step of being the IT rock star is ahead of me. As much as I had enjoyed my work, I am taking up a new challenge this month as a Project Manager in Playtech. Good things come to those who are willing to learn and grow, which is exactly what my internship has allowed me to do. This experience has given me the tools and rock star confidence to reach my goals.

Catch IT! Check more information about our internship program here.