We sit down with our newest Intern, Matt Martin, to find out about his experience at QikServe so far.
Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am originally from Charleston, South Carolina in the US, but I am more often found these days in Greenville, South Carolina at Furman University where I am studying Applied Mathematics and Communication Studies as a third-year student. This fall though, home for me is in Edinburgh, Scotland, where I am participating in study-away program at Edinburgh Napier University and working at QikServe throughout the week.
How have you enjoyed Scotland so far?
It’s been fantastic. I had never left the US until arriving here, so I’ve tried to see as much as possible. I’ve loved exploring around Edinburgh all the shops and restaurants Edinburgh—Meltmongers is a personal favourite. One evening, some friends and I were able to hike to the summit of Arthur’s Seat, which made for an impressive view. On free weekends, I have tried travelling as often as possible too and I’ve been able to visit St. Andrews, Isle of Skye, the Orkney Islands, Madrid and—after this weekend—London.
Matt and some uni friends at the summit of Arthur’s Seat
Sounds like you’re making the most of your time here.
I’d like to think so. When I’m not travelling though, I’ve really enjoyed my time working at QikServe; there’s always new projects coming up, so I’m never bored!
Any interesting projects that you’ve been working on in particular?
One major project from last week was a market basket analysis, where I looked through the digital order receipts from a number of live kiosks to see what products customers purchase together. With these results, the kiosks can strategically up-sell and cross-sell additional products that customers historically purchase, which can effectively improve average transaction value by some 20%. The algorithm works just like the “suggested items” tab on Amazon, but it’s been a tricky problem to crack for me until just recently. There’s been loads of other tasks I have taken on as well from content creation to SEO analyses with Google Analytics to the occasional ping pong game.
A look at ping-pong central inside QikServe HQ
Has it been what you expected?
When I first became connected with QikServe, I did express how I was interested in working at the intersection of mathematical data analysis and business-focused communication—as I felt this well-aligned with my university studies and professional goals— and that part has completely held true. I didn’t expect though to appreciate the office culture as much as I do; the entire QikServe team has been very kind in making me feel integrated to the office culture, even after having only been here two short months so far. It’s made me thankful to work in a small company.
What are some of the other benefits of working for a small company?
Apart from being able to meet everyone personally, a small company has been exciting from an intern’s perspective, because I get to learn of the different roles that make a company like QikServe successful. I also have been fortunate to work alongside almost every department at one point or another in QikServe—from sales to product development to customer success. Everyone I’ve worked alongside has gone out of there way to help me understand what they do and how we can help one another. Plus, I haven’t had to make someone a cup of coffee or copy papers once!
That’s great to hear you’ve been enjoying it. What are you looking forward to next while at QikServe?
I am hoping to design a dashboard for some key performance indicators (KPI) to inform our weekly marketing meetings, while also testing some software for upcoming data analytics projects. Also, on the horizon is Lunch-and-Learn, a monthly office-wide crash-course on topics ranging from Java 101 to Mandarin scripting. It’s exciting being able to practice new skills and seeing the impressive array of talents here in the office—and to me, that’s QikServe in a nutshell.
QikServe: The People is a blog series. Meet the rest of our team here.
