Behind the bet with David Parfett
We sat down with David Parfett, our Global Head of Data and Digital Technology Product, to chat about his time so far at William Hill, and what makes it a great place to work.
Hello David, lovely to chat to you. I remember one of my colleagues calling you to offer you the job - it seems like yesterday!
David:
"Likewise! I've been in the role 18 months now, most of which has been spent working from home. Although I'm pleased to say that I'm starting to spend more time in the London Bedford Avenue office."
I have a huge amount of respect for people who have joined new companies during the pandemic and managed to learn a new job and work with a new team remotely. It's a real leap of faith.
David:
"One of the best things about working here is William Hill’s mature approach to home and office work. The Balance pillar allows us to be home based up to 80% of our time, whilst also giving people the chance to see colleagues face to face. It is still so important to build your network in person and have those ‘off-the-cuff’ conversations in passing. William Hill are supportive of finding the right balance between your working day and the rest of your life!"
Can you tell us a bit about your background in the data world?
David:
"For the last few years, I've helped organisations make better use of data. Usually this means working with executive teams in departments like Marketing, to ensure they have the right information to help them make decisions. Things like identifying events in the customer’s lifecycle , and where they should focus their spend and activity. My aim is to make data a natural, ingrained part of William Hill’s culture and peoples’ day to day job. The beauty of data is that it can be an enabler and can really help people understand and measure the impact of decisions."
What brought you to William Hill?
David:
"Vlad Kaltenieks. He painted a very persuasive picture of the important work that needed to be done with data. Vlad has created a culture of passion and drive. William Hill is such a customer focused company - everything we do is customer driven, and there are so many opportunities to use data to underpin safer gambling."
And what about your team? Can you tell us more about the work they do?
David:
"Well for a start, we are international! We live and work in Leeds, London, Malta, Gibraltar, and Krakow. We're a team of talented Data Scientists, Econometricians and Product Owners, who deal with very large, complex, and rich datasets. There is so much work to do - William Hill is a modern enterprise with data at its heart. This is a Retail and Digital organisation with huge opportunities for personalisation of the customer experience. There is a big investment in using data to understand people's behaviour, both from a player safety and affordability perspective, to make sure customers enjoy our products."
How does data science have an impact?
David:
"It's important to the future of the business. We need to be able to identify customers who might be struggling with affordability. Data science and machine learning help us to do this. We can also better understand how a person likes to use our app and website, so if you like to bet on Liverpool in the Premier League, we'll let you know about special offers on their matches."
It sounds like you're very busy?
David:
"Very! Here's a good fact for you – our data platform processes up to 5k transactions a second in real time."
You must need some pretty nifty technology to make that happen.
David:
"We've embraced Cloud technologies, in particular AWS. This means we're able to store, analyse and process high volumes of data, and we can run complex analytics using machine learning models. If you're a data professional working at William Hill, you're not restricted by a lack of data or system capacity limits. We work with PowerBI, Databricks and Snowflake. Snowflake in particular is a fascinating and popular tool - very on-trend!"
From recent experience hiring Data professionals in our Krakow team, Snowflake is a tool that we like people to have some experience with. What skills and experience do you like to see when you're recruiting?
David:
"Technical experience isn't always the most important attribute. Lots of our recruitment is focused on graduate level hiring. I wouldn’t want someone to be put off from applying because they haven’t used something like Snowflake – not that many companies will use it at the level we do. Above all, I’m looking for problem solvers. Tools and technology can be learned."
What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
David:
"Datacamp is a great place to train yourself up. You can learn PowerBI, SQL and Python by yourself. Econometrics needs a statistical background and sound maths knowledge. You don't always need a degree, but I expect people have a willingness to learn."
And what is the team culture like?
David:
"Most of our work is done remotely, but it’s still a fun team to be part of. There are always interesting projects to get involved with. The work is fast paced and we’re always clear about what we want to achieve. We have all the tools we need to do our best work; we have investment from the business, and there is scope for people to be creative in how they deliver. I’d call it a Research and Development culture. It’s a good environment to develop professionally. You have time and opportunity to learn, and build up a strong skill set."
Finally, what can you tell us about your life outside of work?
David:
"It’s all go at home! We recently welcomed a new addition to the family – Arlo, our Cocker Spaniel puppy who is keeping us on our toes. I also recently cycled from Marlow to Paris with friends. We cycled 250 miles in 3 days, including two laps in the crazy traffic around the Arc de Triomphe."
We’re hiring for some exciting roles in David’s team. If you’re a technical Data whizz with experience in Engineering or Testing, a Data Science expert, or a Machine Learning enthusiast, there could be a role for you here. Even if you’re still developing your skills in these areas, we’d like to hear from you.