30 applicants per spot and a monthly stipend of 15,000 KGS: How to get into O! DataCamp

Imagine an internship program with 30 applicants competing for every spot. For two months, you work on real business challenges, handle big data, and discuss your hypotheses with mentors every day. And yes, instead of paying for the opportunity, you get paid: the monthly stipend is 15,000 KGS.

This is O! DataCamp, a paid internship program offered by O! Mobile Operator in Data Science and Data Engineering. The company’s data team processes petabytes of information every day. O! has spent more than 15 years developing its own training practices, but until recently, these were available only to employees. With O! DataCamp, the company has opened up this expertise to students and recent graduates for the first time.

Twice a year, the company selects 10-15 interns, and the next cohort is just around the corner, launching as early as November. What does it take to be one of them?

Python alone isn’t enough

The formal requirements are straightforward: applicants must hold a degree or be in their final year of a STEM program, know at least one programming language, and have English proficiency at the B2 level. But the most important requirement is the ability to think critically.

During interviews, the program’s mentors focus less on the list of technologies in a candidate’s résumé and more on their approach to problem-solving. Everything matters: whether they ask clarifying questions when a task is ambiguous, can break a complex problem into manageable parts, and are able to justify their conclusions. Completed academic or personal projects, as well as participation in hackathons and academic competitions, are definite advantages.

15,000 KGS a month and real-world challenges instead of theory

Interns receive a monthly stipend of 15,000 KGS for a workload of 30 hours per week. That is close to a full-time work schedule, and the company has chosen this format deliberately: participants are viewed as potential future colleagues, not simply students attending a course.

The program’s greatest value lies in the hands-on challenges drawn from O!’s real business needs:

• Data Engineering: Interns build data pipelines that transform raw information from dozens of systems into clear reports that support business decision-making. They work with SQL and create informative dashboards in Tableau.

• Data Science: Participants uncover hidden patterns and develop algorithms. During the previous cohort, interns improved a computer vision model, and their solution outperformed the company’s existing algorithm in terms of accuracy. As a result, their work was put into real-world use.

Each track has dedicated mentors from O!’s active data team. They guide participants from day one through the final project defense and arrange meetings with experts from related fields. These sessions give interns the opportunity to ask questions about everything from coding techniques to career development.

What comes next?

The program concludes with participants presenting and defending their projects before department heads. For interns, it is an opportunity to showcase their solutions to company leaders. For the leaders, it is a chance to identify promising professionals and invite them to join the team straight away.

And this is more than just a promise: of the eight graduates from the most recent cohort, three joined the team immediately, while the others received priority consideration when new positions became available. Throughout the program’s history, more than 80% of graduates have successfully found jobs in their respective fields

How to apply for the next cohort

The next cohort is scheduled to launch in November. An announcement with the application link and full details will be published on the O! DataCamp Telegram channel: https://t.me/nurtelecom_data. The application window is short, so it is best to subscribe in advance to make sure you can apply as soon as registration opens.

NUR Telecom LLC. KR SCITC SCA Licenses No. 16-0062-КР, No. 16-0063-КР dd. 06.12.2016. Learn more: o.kg