Welcome to our employee spotlight series! One of the key contributors to our growth and success has been our fantastic team, so it’s fitting to bring them into the spotlight with a recurring series. We hope you enjoy getting to know the diverse and unique talent we have the pleasure to work with everyday.
In this post, we get to know Sam, one of our Senior Analysts based in the UK.
What do you do at Opensignal?
I’ve been working in the analysis team for a bit over two years now. My day to day responsibilities consist of analyzing and writing our market reports and insights on mobile network experience, and proofing and editing other analysts' work. I also take on writing some of our bigger reports like the Global Mobile Network Experience Awards.
What attracted you to the company?
Before I joined, I used to be an editor for a wireless publication for four years. Then Opensignal came along, and it seemed like a great opportunity to re-explore some skills that have been laying dormant for a while.
Also, I think what we do here — relating data to actual real world experience — is really cool. Take the pandemic for example, we could actually observe how mobile experience changed because of the shift in people’s habits: spending more time connected to Wifi for example.
What part of your role do you enjoy the most?
The challenge. I can easily find tasks that really push my skills to the upper limit and beyond. You dig through the data, looking for interesting things and looking at it from different angles and you often find something you didn’t expect.
What are you most proud of?
That’s easy. It’s the various projects I do to help the team, helping us be more accurate and speed up workflow. For example, I recently created a worksheet, where you can just paste the raw data in and it gives you outputs that make writing country reports much easier. That was really satisfying.
You’ve spent nearly a decade in the wireless industry. What drew you to it in the first place?
It’s just a fascinating industry. Everyone is so dependent on it and it has so much potential. There are so many opportunities out there that have yet to be fully realized, and all of them rely on wireless communication. The Internet of Things is just one example but there are dozens more.
What do you find unique about Opensignal?
To sum it up: credit, recognition, appreciation. It’s great to be working for a company that really takes care of its employees, recognizing achievements across the board. It feels very balanced.
From a day to day job point of view it’s seeing my work reach all corners of the world. I don't think there are many jobs where your analyses and your writing is covered by the press all around the globe. That can really give you a buzz.
And also my relationship with my manager: he’s just very dedicated, knowledgeable, and always fights in the team's corner. These are really important.
If you had to sum up Opensignal in three words what would they be?
Innovative, diverse and successful.
What do your weekends look like?
On Saturdays my wife and I typically take our dog, Merlin, for a walk around the lake. Then on Sunday evenings, my friends and I have our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, which has been going ever since the pandemic started. I love role playing because while it's not real, the decisions you make feel real. It’s a great way to explore and deal with situations you would never encounter in real life. I also paint toy soldiers, which I find really relaxing. It’s great that shows like Stranger Things are helping people embrace geek-culture — when I was a teenager it was considered something to be ashamed of.
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
The ability to never get worse at anything and to eventually become the best at anything if I practiced hard enough.
What was the last book you read?
There are actually three. Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma. It talks about biographical memory and the factors which influence when you have your first memories and that kind of thing. Really interesting.
I've also been reading some books on AI. Superintelligence by Nick Bostromn, which is good but quite heavy going, and Human Compatible by Stuart Russels, which, ironically, is too easygoing. The latter states that it doesn't matter whether AI is conscious or not. To my mind, that matters immensely. It'd be nice to think that if we are going to one day be replaced by AI, we'll be replaced by something that we could have a drink and discussion with, rather than something which is just on a never ending quest to turn the universe into paper clips.
Interested in learning more about the Opensignal team? In our recent employee spotlight we get to know more about Ryan, a CAI manager and avid hiker.
Want to know more about Opensignal? Have a look at our About page or browse around the Careers page to find your next opportunity!
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