Andrew Chow

Life at theScore
Software Developer

January 2024 - August 2024

By: Andrew Chow

During my 4th and 5th work terms, I continued my journey with theScore as a Software Developer on the Promotions team.

What is theScore?

theScore, a wholly-owned subsidiary of PENN Entertainment, empowers millions of sports fans through its digital media and sports betting products. Its media app ‘theScore’ is one of the most popular in North America, delivering fans highly personalized live scores, news, stats, and betting information from their favorite teams, leagues, and players. theScore’s sports betting app ‘theScore Bet Sportsbook & Casino’ delivers an immersive and holistic mobile sports betting and iCasino experience. theScore Bet is currently live in the Company's home province of Ontario. theScore also creates and distributes innovative digital content through its web, social and esports platforms.

What is the Promotions Service Responsible For?

The Promotions service is responsible for granting awards to users on theScoreBet and ESPN Bet platforms upon completing dynamic marketing campaigns. Each promotional campaign includes an audience of users that are available to participate in the promotion, allowing patrons to complete various steps by placing qualifying actions, including deposits, bets and casino wagers.

TLDR: We design and implement reward-based experiences to drive user engagement and acquisition across our platforms.

💻 Technologies Used

📚 Learning Goals

My goals for this term were to continue growing as a developer, seeking out opportunities to push myself further and take on new challenges.

🎒 My Experience

Over the past 8 months, I’ve had the opportunity of contributing to the largest project undertaken by the Promotions team: the Refer-A-Friend program. Referrals are a crucial component for any sportsbook, driving user engagement, attracting new customers, and retaining existing ones. This feature provides immense value to the business, highlighting the importance of innovative promotional strategies.

The project was extensive, impacting multiple backend services and requiring significant client-side changes, including new user flows. I contributed to various aspects of the Referral project, such as developing new APIs, services, and asynchronous jobs. I also played a key role in triaging and resolving various bugs.

After six months of hard work, we successfully launched the product in early August. It was an amazing experience to see this project come to life just in time for the 2024-2025 NFL season, marking one of my first major product launches I had a chance to witness.

📘 Reflection

The last 8 months have undoubtedly been some of the most unforgettable of my time at theScore. It’s hard to believe that I’ve had the privilege of working with the same incredible team across 5 work terms, dating back to May 2022.

Looking back, it’s incredible to see how much I’ve grown personally and professionally, and to reflect on all the connections and memories I’ve made with everyone at theScore. I couldn’t have done it without the support of the Promotions team. This team truly felt like home, and I’m going to miss everyone. Though this chapter is ending, I’m excited for the next one to begin :)

🎖️ Acknowledgements

🏆 Special thanks to Hughie for being a great leader and mentor throughout the term.
🏆 Thanks to Pushkar for being my day one mentor, answering all my questions since the first line of Elixir code I wrote :)
🏆 Shoutout to everyone on the Promotions team, it's been a pleasure working with all of you again!
🏆 Thanks to Michelle and Nadia for shaping the co-op culture and hosting all of the co-op events and activites throughout the term!