What is Twitch?
Twitch, a subsidiary of Amazon, is an American video live-streaming service with a focus on video games, including broadcasts of esports competitions. Twitch also offers various other content categories such as music broadcasts, creative content, and IRL (in real life) streams.
Why work for Twitch?
Workplace Development
Twitch offers a wide range of opportunities for employee development on the job. This includes coaching and mentoring, live workshops, or if those aren't your style, they have variety of e-learning material as well.
Flexible Work
Twitch is a remote-friendly workplace, with global no-meeting days and company holidays. On top of that they have modified work arrangements, so you aren't tied to a specific schedule.
Mental Health
Everyone knows that you cannot do your best work without being in a good mental space. Twitch says they offers wellness programs for their employees, paid parental leave, and boast a healthy work-life balance.
Equity and Inclusion
Twitch boasts a rich company culture for inclusion and equity in the form of "guilds." These guilds are employee communities meant to foster belonging and allyship. Their current guilds includes the following: Access Ability Guild, Asian Guild, Black Guild, Somos LATAM Guild, Parents Guild, Rainbow Road Guild, Veterans Guild, and Women+ Guild. Twitch states that they are committed to supporting these guilds through executive sponsorship, leadership development, and quarterly inclusion and equity updates.
Twitch Tech Stack
Twitch has a wide variety of stacks they use per role you assume. Since this blog is centered around software development, let's focus on their Software Developer I role. The tech stack that they would prefer a candidate has includes Golang (Go), TypeScript, and React.
Here's a quick introduction to what this stack entails.
Golang
"Go is a high-level general purpose programming language that is statically typed and compiled. It is known for the simplicity of its syntax and the efficiency of development that it enables by the inclusion of a large standard library supplying many needs for common projects." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(programming_language)
TypeScript
"TypeScript may be used to develop JavaScript applications for both client-side and server-side execution (as with React.js, Node.js, Deno or Bun). Multiple options are available for transpiling. The default TypeScript Compiler can be used, or the Babel compiler can be invoked to convert TypeScript to JavaScript." -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TypeScript
React
"React (also known as React.js or ReactJS) is a free and open-source front-end JavaScript library that aims to make building user interfaces based on components more "seamless".[5] It is maintained by Meta (formerly Facebook) and a community of individual developers and companies. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, React is one of the most commonly used web technologies. React can be used to develop single-page, mobile, or server-rendered applications with frameworks like Next.js and React Router. Because React is only concerned with the user interface and rendering components to the DOM, React applications often rely on libraries for routing and other client-side functionality.[11][12] A key advantage of React is that it only re-renders those parts of the page that have changed, avoiding unnecessary re-rendering of unchanged DOM elements. React is used by an estimated 6% of all websites." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/React_(software)
Interview Process
On Twitch's career website, they refer to their interview process as "Levels."
Level 1 - The Recruiter Chat
After you've been referred, recruited, or applied to your job of choice you should expect a 15-30 minute recruiter call. This is their chance to get to know you beyond your resume, and your chance to get to know a bit about the company so it's the perfect chance to ask questions!
Level 2 - Meeting the Hiring Manager
Twitch refers to this level as your first "boss fight." This level is only achieved if you're assumed to be a good fit for the role, so if you've made it this far, great job! This "boss fight" entails a 30-60 minute chat with your potential future manager. The hiring manager will be the person understanding the role you're applying for better than anyone in this process, so role specific questions are non-negotiable at this stage. Ask away!
Side Quest - Skills Assessment
Since we'd be applying for a software developer role, a skill assessment is necessary to test your coding proficiency. This process is done asynchronously over 1-2 weeks.
Level 3 - Sharpening Your Skills
Level 3 is described as a level where you take some time with your recruiter and prepare for the onsite interview. Study study study!
Final Boss - Onsite Interview
And finally the moment we've been waiting for, the "Final Boss" aka the interview! At this stage you'll meet with 4-5 employees from the Twitch team, each interview lasting 45 minutes to 1 hour. The question you'll be asked will range from technical to behavioral so the team can get a good understanding of your current experience, potential, and values. These meetings can be done remotely as well!
Conclusion
Twitch definitely seems to be a great place to work as a person studying software development. Once you overcome all the hurdles or "levels" you will come out on top as a new person, with a shiny new employee badge!
EXTRA RESOURCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_(service)
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