Lucas Maystre: Senior Research Scientist

Lucas is a Senior Research Scientist at Spotify and divides his time between our London workplace and his flat in Belsize Park.

7.30am

I often stand up at round 7.30am and begin my day with a fast breakfast. I wish to set to work comparatively early, so I go surfing about 8am if I’m working from house. But I’m now beginning to return into the workplace a few days per week – commuting in by bike, until it’s pouring with rain! 

8.30am

I’ve been a Research Scientist at Spotify for simply over three years and work with numerous Personalisation groups – serving to them at any time when they’ve an issue that wants some recent concepts. Most of my tasks are within the area of machine studying, modelling and engineering. And for some time now, I’ve been serving to out on a workforce that’s attempting to measure customers’ long-term satisfaction – that’s, how glad customers are with our service and the way seemingly they’re to maintain utilizing it sooner or later. Together, we’re constructing new methods of selecting suggestions that explicitly intention to make customers glad in the long run.

Most of the groups I work with are within the US, so I don’t are likely to have many conferences within the morning. It’s an excellent time for me to do duties that require deep focus and lengthy, uninterrupted intervals of focus. But I all the time make time for a espresso break – I purchased a elaborate espresso machine in lockdown and love the ritual of getting ready my mid-morning caffeine repair.  

1pm

I eat lunch with my associate if I’m working from house, or with colleagues if it’s one in every of my days within the workplace. There’s a canteen serving scorching meals at Spotify, however we frequently head out to a close-by restaurant – it’s a chance to catch up, share information and benefit from the social facet of working alongside each other once more. 

2pm

My afternoons are extra meeting-heavy – I spend a lot of my time liaising with colleagues within the US and replying to requests or emails. What I really like about my position is that I’ve plenty of freedom over which groups I collaborate with, so I can all the time discover analysis questions that excite me and are ideally suited to my talent set. 

I additionally work lots with college students, both by way of internships or collaborations with universities. It’s a chance to discover issues which can be a bit additional faraway from our instant product wants and the burning questions that we’re attempting to reply at Spotify. It means we will attempt issues which can be a bit extra dangerous and I discover that actually attention-grabbing and enriching. 

These days, for instance, I’m working with a pupil from University College London that has joined Spotify on a six-month placement. Even although his PhD is in physics, there’s plenty of overlap with analysis issues that Spotify is taken with and the variations in background make it very enriching.

6pm

I often wrap up round 6pm, conferences allowing. Then I typically head out for a breath of recent air or a run, earlier than coming house to prepare dinner dinner with my associate. I’ve been spending plenty of time within the kitchen recently – it’s my favorite solution to unwind on the finish of a busy day.