Job Posting: Washington Nationals Research & Development Internship
Position: Washington Nationals Research & Development Internship
Location: Washington DC
Description:
The Washington Nationals are seeking a motivated intern to join the organization’s Baseball Research and Development team for the upcoming season. The Research & Development internship includes an emphasis on computer programming and data analysis. The intern’s main responsibility will be to assist the R&D department with input, cleaning, and processing of baseball data into proprietary databases. There will also be assignments that require statistical analysis on large volumes of baseball-related data. Candidates must have significant experience with R and SQL, as well as an interest in publicly available sabermetrics research and data science.
Responsibilities:
- Statistical modeling with baseball data.
- Data visualization.
- Review of public research in both baseball and data science.
- Other duties as assigned.
Qualifications:
- Pursuing a degree or received a degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or Mathematics preferred.
- Experience with R and SQL required.
- Demonstrated passion for baseball and baseball operations.
- Highly motivated and excellent attention to detail.
- Available for the entire term of the Internship.
- Authorized to work in the United States.
To Apply:
Please apply here. When you do, you will be asked to answer three additional yes/no questions:
- Do you have experience with R and SQL database?
- Are you pursuing a degree or received a degree in Computer Science, Statistics or Mathematics?
- Are you available to work a minimum of 34 hours per week between April 1 and November 1, 2017?
Paul Swydan used to be the managing editor of The Hardball Times, a writer and editor for FanGraphs and a writer for Boston.com and The Boston Globe. Now, he owns The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Acton, Mass. Follow him on Twitter @Swydan. Follow the store @SilUnicornActon.
And how, exactly, is the candidate supposed to pay for accommodation in that fair city?
You live in a van down by the Anacostia at a construction site that charges you $20 a day to park there. Catch your dinner right out of the river!
The candidate doesn’t. Probably the candidate is a college aged person who is from a family of means, such that Dad’s money pays the rent while kiddo chases the baseball dream. Possibly, the candidate is married to a very understanding and employed spouse who pays the rent while they chase the baseball dream.
Most of the times the organization ends up hiring a relative of someone who’s already working for them.
I had a phone interview with the Cardinals a few months ago. I was so nevous. Definitely choked that away. But the advice that I got was to try to reach out to as many clubs via email, know my value, and that it only takes one person to believe in you…. I’m assuming my value is really low.
Says must be “authorized to work in the US.” Paid gig?
The dates on these internships are always the problem. It’s hard to be currently pursuing a degree and be available to work full time between April and November.
In my university department, we were allowed to take a “class” that was basically us doing an internship. Had to have a professor as an adviser, who would determine any work we had to do to receive credit. In my case I just had to keep a journal and write a reflection essay. Also allowed me to stay enrolled in school and receive student loans. Probably not an option for everyone but worth looking into.
But April-November is over the course of like 3 semesters: Spring, Summer, Fall. Your university would have to be extremely flexible/pragmatic to give credit for something like this over the course of 2-3 semesters. Most people, though, can’t manage a full-time job, plus a full course-load (or in some cases, one course fewer) over the course of almost an entire school-year. To top it off, you get to bust your butt off for no financial gain.