Bastian Stapersma, Senior Data Analyst Team Traffic & Acquisition

My work sometimes feels like a big game. Out of billions of keywords, we bid on just a few thousand words and try to purchase those as efficiently as possible. As SEA specialists, we then use those ads to generate more traffic for our search engines. We offer online advertisers a high-traffic and relevant context they can use for their promotional purposes. My job can be summarised as bringing supply and demand together.

I make all manner of assumptions that I back up with indications and metrics about the results. I always strive to extract maximum value from data. I am given complete freedom to choose how to do that. If something doesn't make sense to me, I am free to try it out and keep tweaking it until I get the results I want. In this manner, we are constantly testing and iterating. It is an ongoing cycle of learning: you come up with an idea, draw up the requisite hypotheses and set out to gather the insights you need. Then it is all about experimentation and- sometimes - discarding ideas as quickly as you thought of them. Of course, you will be wrong quite often. When you do hit the mark, however, it feels incredible and is so valuable.

We are quite spoiled here. We have someone to cook for us, we go out for drinks together, organise fun parties and take amazing trips. The atmosphere is truly pleasant. People are genuinely interested in each other and there is a great deal of interaction. We work hard, of course, but that is not all we do. We are given every opportunity to develop ourselves and to work out. We have people from a wide variety of educational backgrounds: vocational and higher education, university and self-taught experts. We are a lively bunch and although not everyone will necessarily fit in here, I absolutely feel like I do.