Addressing Black representation in the energy industry
At Octopus Energy, our mission is to drive the global renewable revolution and make green energy affordable for all. In order to succeed, we need to build a team that represents everyone in our society. Unfortunately, Black professionals make up < 2% of the energy workforce, which is a significant under-representation compared to the ethnic composition of the UK. To help address this, we have created an internship programme that is only open to candidates who identify with any Black, Black British, African or Caribbean background. We are committed to promoting equality, and this internship is an important step in our effort to foster greater diversity and inclusiveness in our business and industry.
Applications for all our internships will close on the 17th April.
This is our sixth year running the internship programme. You can hear from our past interns and learn about our previous internships.
As a Forecasting Data Scientist intern you’ll be joining a small team of 5 who forecast the energy needed for the business (both demand & generation) as part of our wider Energy Markets function. As part of the team you’ll be helping to forecast energy for over 12 million accounts across gas and electricity, serving 7 million households.
The team is responsible for building and maintaining time-series forecast models, data pipelines and data insights within the forecasting function. Forecasts ultimately get used by the Trading & Risk teams.
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What you'll do:
Day to day you’ll spend most of your time coding and could be working on anything from: creating a new forecast for wind sites or a segment of our customer portfolio; adding new functionality to our forecasting dashboards; testing our data to try to find new useful features to train our forecast on or researching new machine learning techniques to use in our pipeline.
You will work alongside data scientists, engineers, analysts and traders to maintain and develop our forecasting capabilities. You will learn:
- Data science skills (python, data wrangling, data visualisation)
- Machine Learning methods (model types, workflow, metrics)
- Data engineering principles (sql, version control, ETL)
- Context around the Wholesale Energy Market
What you will have:
We're looking for someone with a general interest in the energy industry or net-zero; someone diligent and thoughtful. You do not necessarily need any formal education in programming or computer science but you should be able to demonstrate a reasonable level of ability and interest. We’re looking for applicants with basic skills in Python, strong numerical skills and a passion for solving problems. It would be a bonus, but is not a requirement, to have experience with SQL.
Above all, we’re looking for someone who thrives on providing alternative opinions, challenging those around them and being challenged. If this sounds like you and you have a genuine passion for what we are doing then we'd love to hear from you!
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*** IMPORTANT - HOW TO APPLY ***
Follow the link below to be taken to an application form where you will be prompted to 'Attach Resume/CV'. Please do not upload a CV. Instead, you should upload a cover letter made up of no more than 500 words. 🚀
This cover letter is your chance to stand out! We want to know about you, your passions, and why you think you would be a great fit for an internship at Octopus Energy. We don’t use CVs as we are more interested in what makes you tick than we are about the opportunities you have had up to this point.
It is really important that this cover letter is written by you and really tells us your story. By putting this into AI, your story will get lost. So, while we typically encourage efficient ways of working, please refrain from using AI for this task 🤖
This cover letter is the same for all our internships, so if you are applying for one or multiple positions, you will only need to write one. Please use the below brief of what to include:
- Before your skills and experience, we’re looking for the right kind of person – the kind who is utterly passionate about our mission and who thrives working how we work. So, please let us know why the Octopus Energy Group stands out to you? 🐙
- Tell us about yourself - who you are, what you are studying or have studied, what makes you…you?
- What do you think you could bring to an internship at Octopus Energy?
- Tell us about a time you went above and beyond to help someone else, not because you had to, but because it was the right thing to do.
- If we gave you a stage and 2 minutes to teach the company something, anything, that has nothing to do with energy, what would it be?
We want to ensure you have all the tools and environment you need to unleash your potential. Need any specific accommodations? Whether you require specific accommodations during your interview process or have a unique preference, let us know, and we'll do what we can to customise your interview process for comfort and maximum magic!
