Do you have an analytical mindset? Do you have one of those mugs that says ‘I <3 Spreadsheets’? Do you want to work at Hutch? You’ve come to the right article! We’re currently recruiting for a games analyst AND a junior games analyst.

But what makes a good analyst? We’ve picked the brains of our Head of Growth and Insight, Tim to give you an idea of what we’re looking for…

What kind of person can be an analyst?

The most important thing we’re looking for is an analytical mindset. You don’t have to have direct experience of games analysis! Just about every kind of company has some department they may call analytics, planning, scrutiny, or chin-strokers, it all comes down to a basic set of skills: the insight into how you can use data to solve problems and identify opportunities.

Perhaps you use spreadsheets to track and plan your personal finances, or you’ve run simulations to optimise your min/max build in a game? Did you use internet archives to collect data on the shrinkflation of chocolate and correlate it to growth in GDP? When you saw the news report a multi-million government expenditure, did you calculate it as a % of all government spend to better contextualise it? Did you make your own estimates of the prevalence of COVID-19 in your local community, based on available data? Even if you’re fresh out of university with a maths/science degree and no significant analytics work experience yet, these are the kinds of things we look for!

What does it mean to be a games analyst?

When it comes to using data to solve problems in mobile games, we have a tremendous range of opportunities...

We can identify where game levels may be too difficult, or where upgrades are overpriced; we can evaluate the statistical significance of A/B tests trying out different game design choices. We can review the relative popularity of in-game items and use that to guide future additions. If a player reports a bug, we can estimate how prevalent it is so we can prioritise what we fix accordingly. If we have a good week of performance, we can break down the contributing factors to work out how much was due to internal vs external factors, so we draw the right lessons from it.

We can go deeper, too. What is the most meaningful way to segment our players? Can we forecast player retention, churn or spend? Can we measure player sentiment meaningfully, and use that in tandem with behavioural data? Perhaps the biggest question - can we draw on the data holistically to give meaningful input on how we choose which features to add, or even what new games to make?

If you’re someone with an analytical mindset, and you find these sorts of questions interesting, we’d love to hear from you!

Check out the latest Hutch vacancies here: https://www.hutch.io/careers