
Think about your favorite video game: the graphics, the sound effects, the user experience — each part of your favorite game has been carefully crafted by an engineer, designer, or coder so that you can have the most immersive experience possible. These are just some of the roles that you could work in at Activision Blizzard, a Fortune 100 company and producer of some of the most prominent video games in the world. From Candy Crush to Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard is a frontrunner in the video game market. In addition to providing an opportunity for you to make an impact on a game played by millions of users, a role at Activision Blizzard will also offer engaging and challenging projects, empower you with creative freedom, and help advance your professional career and network. Sam Markowitz ‘21 had such an opportunity as a virtual Audio Engineering Intern at Activision Blizzard for the Infinity Ward team this summer. Keep reading to see what your day could look like if you were to intern for Activision Blizzard as well!
My typical workday at Activision Blizzard is definitely unique. As a result of COVID-19, I was unfortunately unable to move to California to conduct my internship in person. As someone who lives on the East Coast, this meant that I would be working with a three-hour time difference. Activision was very understanding of this obstacle and allowed me a high degree of flexibility in my workday. I personally like to be on the same track as everyone else, so I decided for myself that I would work from 12:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. EST, which worked out really great as it meant that I could be in sync with everyone at Activision, who were working from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. PT and not work too late into the night.
I like to start my workday by catching up with emails and Slack messages. I check to see if I was assigned any short-term assignments by my managers before starting work on my long-term summer project. One thing I loved about my long-term project is that my manager designed it so that I would be able to work on it in its entirety and see my own vision come to fruition. Activision believes in empowering its interns by giving them projects that they will see from start to finish. I was also able to get feedback on my project from my fellow interns and coworkers. My experience at Activision has given me the skills needed to successfully create and implement a vision for a product and user experience.

Throughout my late “morning”, or in my case, afternoon, I have multiple check-in meetings with my team and other interns. I sometimes have one-on-one meetings with my managers in which they check in on my work and offer me valuable feedback and advice. My managers, being extremely invested in my internship experience, want to make sure that I am getting the experience that I hoped for.
I also have scheduled meetings with many different people on Activision’s audio team, which includes the audio design team, who work on creating the sound experience of a game, and the audio programming team, who is in charge of creating and adjusting the tools that audio designers use. I am on the audio programming team, which means my projects consist of me adding new features to Activision Blizzard pre-existing programs. Essentially, if Activision Blizzard’s programs are a video game, my job is to continuously update the video game with brand new features designed to improve the video game’s function. I really like this aspect of my work, as it feels like I am contributing to something that is always evolving. Since my role relies on the rest of the team, it’s super important that I meet with everyone else working on the game to make sure we are all in agreement. Plus, meeting with other teams such as the audio design team allows me to learn more about other roles at Activision Blizzard.
My last meeting prior to lunch is one with all of the programmers at Activision Blizzard in which we update each other on our respective projects and exchange ideas with one another. These meetings give me the opportunity to collaborate with so many creative minds and get valuable advice on my projects. Moreover, since we are working to create an immersive experience for a user, it is really great to be able to check with each other to ensure that we are all following the same vision for the final product.

Of course, I am not in meetings all day — in between my afternoon meetings, I tend to make functional additions to my projects. Moreover, I add hard lines of code to my programs that I had theoretically designed beforehand. Getting my coding done prior to lunch opens my post-lunch work schedule to rigorous testing and revision of my code and allows me to enjoy my lunch break feeling productive and relatively stress-free.
Normally around 3:30 p.m. we take a break for lunch. Since the program was virtual this year, I get to prepare my favorite lunch at home, typically either a turkey avocado club or a quesadilla! Then, I jump back onto Zoom and catch up with my friends from the internship. To make sure we were able to meet other interns, Activision Blizzard created small pods so we could get to know each other a bit better. Each week, we compete in new challenges with our pods at intern events, like trivia or a virtual escape room, where we have to solve puzzles faster than the other teams. My pod and I got pretty close during the internship, so we try to hang out over lunch. The virtual internship program at Activision Blizzard created an environment where I made real friendships with other interns and the adults working around me.
After lunch, once I get back to my desk, I sign on to our guest speaker series. Today our speaker is Tony Hawk who came to Activision Blizzard to talk about his new game. The speaker series is a great opportunity to talk to the visionaries behind Activision Blizzard’s products or the celebrities that are involved in the process of making them. Normally, when there’s no speaker, interns use this time slot to collaborate across different parts of the company for feedback on their designs. Similar to our morning check-ins, after lunch I’m able to talk to different functions. The main difference is my afternoon meetings are normally an opportunity for feedback on my work. Because each game is an artist’s attempt to create an immersive experience, I know I need to speak with people from across the game’s development team about every feature I make. This is my chance to get to hear what they have to say and to give designers and creators opportunities to give me feedback. There are so many opportunities at Activision Blizzard to work with people across the company, and every day the interns get access to incredible creators. After these meetings, I’ll implement the changes that we talked about in our meetings so I can take into account the new perspectives that I got during my conversations.
As the day comes to a close, I take a moment to look back over the work that I’ve done over the course of the day. I finish my day by running final tests to check my progress. With the results, I can see clearly which projects I’m happy with and which I’d like to work even more on tomorrow. As the clock nears 8:00 p.m. (or 5:00 p.m. PT), I write myself a note reminding me what my goals for the next day are. I close my computer ready to dive back into my projects in the morning!

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Each year, more than 400 million people around the world play an Activision Blizzard game. Games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and CandyCrush are the most famous, but there are many more in progress that need enthusiastic designers to perfect them.
Activision Blizzard makes its creators' visions come to life in an immersive work environment. And, they’re willing to put in the work to make sure those creators are able to do their best work. For me, the virtual internship is a testament to the company’s supportive culture--when plans for an in-person internship were wiped out by the virus, managers, administrators, designers, and more came together to put together an incredible program. Although we are a worldwide company that produces games for millions of people, we are a tight-knit collaborative community that always supports each other.
My experience with Activision Blizzard showed me one thing: No matter what department you work in, the company has your back. After my internship experience, I decided to stay with Activision Blizzard this fall. There’s no place where I’d rather explore my interests and further my career.