Interview with intern turned full-time data engineer, Marten

05/05/2022

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Hi Marten, can you tell us something about yourself?

Definitely! My name is Marten Roels, 21 years old. I am a student of Applied Information Technology at HoGent with a specialization in AI and Data Engineering. For the time being I am doing my internship at Accurat to strengthen my data engineering skills and will join the team as a permanent member starting September.

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How did the internship help to launch your career and why did you choose to stay at Accurat?

The challenging projects and the excitement that comes along with it contributed to my decision to start as a full-time employee. The location in Merelbeke, next to Ghent is convenient but especially the great working atmosphere was a deciding factor. Moreover, as a permanent employee you can have greater responsibilities than as an intern. As an intern you already get a feeling of how a company operates on a day to day basis. At Accurat I immediately felt at home and enjoyed the work that was given to me. I received some other job opportunities at other data-driven companies but chose to stick with Accurat because I already learned in my internship that this was a job I could see myself doing for a long time and I knew everyone in the team believed in my skills.

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How does your mentor support you in the assignments that you’re doing here? Does he meet your expectations?

Steven, the CTO at Accurat, has done a great job so far. He has given me self-confidence, guidance, and motivation to confront difficult challenges. Everyone on the team supports me in the tasks and projects I do. Each team member has their own specialties. For SQL related problems I reach out to Bavo, for more data science related issues Henri and Wietse are always there. Everything is supervised by Steven who provides assistance and oversight for all.

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Tell us about a recent project you worked on.

I am currently creating a proof of concept creating a prototype of an expansion dashboard for retailers. By providing insights of the area such as the number of inhabitants, traffic, neighboring stores,.. retailers can get a better understanding whether a certain location would be a potentially good place to open a new store or not.

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(Why) Do you believe in Accurat’s services?

It is clearly an added value for any company that wants to gain insights and has made a goal of making more data driven decisions. Accurat helps retailers understand their (potential) customers better. The product we’re working on is also  improving at an ultra-fast pace with the addition of more insight features.

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What is your favorite Point-of-Interest (POI)?

I like to play physical and digital board games with my friends such as Age of Empires II and Dungeons & Dragons but the Chiro in Eine is the most important in my life at the moment.