A day in the life of…Lucas Borgna, PhD Placement Intern

A day in the life of…Lucas Borgna, PhD Placement Intern

Ever wondered what it is like to intern as a PHD student at Vortexa? We sat down with Lucas Borgna to discover how his experience working as a Data Scientist unfolded, what he thought of our company culture and if he would ever want to return full time?

29 January, 2021
Jessica Irvin
Jessica Irvin, Head of Operations & People

Lucas studied Engineering Physics as an undergraduate ay Loughborough University and completed a year-long placement as a technical student at the ATLAS detector in CERN. Lucas is now completing his PhD in Particle Physics at UCL and joined Vortexa as a Data Scientist intern. This is how his experience with us unfolded… 


Why did you choose to intern at Vortexa?

As an intern, I wanted to learn as much as possible on how data science is used and applied in the real world and business. Naturally, Vortexa was the perfect place for me to explore different models and develop them to provide a solution that delivers value to the business. This appealed to me in particular because it is a rare opportunity in the academic world.

What has day-to-day life been like for you whilst interning at Vortexa?

First and foremost daily life at Vortexa is very collaborative, including across teams and throughout remote working conditions, which is truly refreshing to experience. On a large scale, there is some degree of predictability in the ongoing work. However, daily there is some degree of variability as we are always learning new things from the data.

What have been the most interesting elements of interning at Vortexa?

I really enjoyed the synergy with market analysts as this enabled me to expand my domain-specific knowledge. Without a doubt, this was paramount in the development of key features that significantly improved the performance of our machine learning models.

What kind of qualities does a person need to have to succeed at Vortexa?

I think that the top quality that a person needs to have at Vortexa is an eagerness to learn more. This trait is essential as the environment is constantly evolving. Another key quality is to be able to multitask efficiently as it helps to explore solutions quickly and deduce conclusions.

What do you like about the culture?

Initially, I was nervous about joining a new company under the Work From Home environment, thinking that it would be difficult to collaborate. However, the nurturing and supportive culture at Vortexa quickly showed me that I had nothing to worry about.

Who did you collaborate most with in the company?

I generally collaborated with the engineers and data scientists within my team the most. However, the nature of my projects required me to collaborate with market analysts quite frequently. Not only did this interaction aid my understanding of the business contexts of my projects, but it was also crucial to understand the datasets I was working with.

What energises you most about returning to Vortexa full-time?

Looking back in what was a relatively short amount of time learnt I’ve learnt an incredible amount of technologies that I would have never come across before. It has also pushed me to improve my existing skills in software development to a point where I’m much more confident. Returning on a full-time basis makes me really excited to continue to probe this opportunity space even further.


 

Interested in joining our team?

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Jessica Irvin
Head of Operations & People
Vortexa
Jessica Irvin
Jessica is Head of People & Operations at Vortexa and is responsible for hiring, learning & development, culture, engagement, performance management and leading expansion plans.