What was your journey to Arena?

My journey to Arena was definitely an unexpected one. When I graduated from Northwestern with a degree in math and minor in computer science, my strong ties to a campus business organization led me to my first job working on bespoke debt products at UBS.

After 4 years at UBS, I returned to school to pursue my Master’s in Data Science at NYU, wanting to return to a more technical path and reconnect with the skills I had started developing in undergrad. I also realized that the era of AI was dawning and I would regret not being a part of it. Upon starting my Master's, I learned about Arena through a friend who had just joined... and here I am nearly 3 years later!

What do you do at Arena? 

My title is Machine Learning Scientist, but at a startup, that can mean a lot of different things. Executing end-to-end and delivering for customers can entail data engineering, problem solving with math or ML approaches, detailed discussions with customers, and iterating based on those learnings. Most importantly, all of this has to happen while considering the vision of the company.

Why did you join Arena?

I had a realization the day that I met the Arena team and it has held true throughout the years - this is a company of people who are very technical but still incredibly easy to talk to. The work and discussion is not pedantic or bookish. Everything we do is practical, real world applications. 

What are you most excited about?

I'm excited about Arena's evolution and seeing where we ultimately land in the broader AI ecosystem. While we're always planning what the next phase of our journey looks like, I believe our speed and quality of execution, in addition to our internal ML and product bets, will  determine the scale of the opportunity we can capture and what Arena can become.

What is your favorite Arena memory?

I have a lot of share-worthy Arena memories, but a recent favorite was our retreat at Mohonk Mountain House this year. Since the entire company is  extremely active, forward deploying across the world at all times, it was special for everyone to be together and catch up. One night, we all selected and presented gifs that represented our past year at Arena. It was a silly activity, but made for a lot of laughter and good content.

What is your advice for anyone interested in working at Arena?

Technical skills are critical but I think the true differentiator is mentality and grit. People who want to continuously learn and raise the bar will make excellent candidates. 

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned at Arena is that it’s okay to be handed big, undefined problems and not know where to start. My younger self would've felt really demoralized but I’ve come to realize that progress often begins with small, imperfect steps — even if you’re unsure how to move forward. If you’re interested in joining Arena, embrace this uncertainty (in life and in the interviews too)! 

If you're passionate about building and working towards something greater than yourself, we welcome you to the Arena.

An Arena tradition is sharing a hot take: what’s a hot take you have?

Ramen is better as a pasta than a soup.