Twitch

The world's largest live-streaming service for gaming and entertainment, with a London office at New Oxford Street.

About Twitch

Twitch is a live-streaming service where people watch and broadcast video games, music, sport, cooking and talk shows in real time. Viewers chat with the person streaming and with each other, which makes it feel more like a shared event than a video on demand. Its own description is a place "where millions of people come together live every day to chat, interact, and make their own entertainment".

Twitch began in 2007 and is now owned by Amazon. We did not find a formal mission statement or a list of company values, so the description above is the closest wording we found. A job-site profile lists about 3,370 employees worldwide, which includes engineering, product, community safety, partnerships and sales teams. The service describes its communities as built around gaming, entertainment, music, sports and cooking, so the work reaches well beyond games.

Twitch opened its first European base in London in 2014 on Carnaby Street, with a new team of ten and a full studio so that UK games developers could stream to the platform. At that time it said the UK audience had doubled to 2 million unique users in a year, and that Europe, the Middle East and Africa accounted for about half of its global traffic. A current job-site profile lists the London office at 1 New Oxford Street.

The London office supports advertisers, partners and creators in Europe, so roles there are often in sales, partner and creator management, marketing and community work. Technical roles may sit elsewhere, so check each listing carefully. The job-site profile gives little on culture beyond a flexible approach to being in the office, so ask about working patterns during the application process. The 2014 London studio was built so that UK developers could stream their games live to the platform. Twitch is a useful example of how quickly a UK audience can grow: in 2014 it said its UK viewers had doubled in twelve months.

For students, Twitch is a way to see how a gaming habit becomes a global media business. Streamers, game studios, brands and esports organisations all rely on the service to reach fans, and UK-based teams help those groups succeed. If you enjoy online communities, live events or storytelling with video, it is worth following the company and its creators closely.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Broadcast and watch games, music and talk shows live.', 'title': 'Live streaming'}
• {'desc': 'Support for streamers, from chat to partner programmes.', 'title': 'Creator tools'}
• {'desc': 'Ways for brands to reach live audiences.', 'title': 'Advertising and partnerships'}
• {'desc': 'Teams that keep chat and streams safe.', 'title': 'Community safety'}

Key facts

• Founded 2007; owned by Amazon (search result)
• London office at 1 New Oxford Street (job-site profile)
• Opened a European base on Carnaby Street, London, in 2014
• About 3,370 employees worldwide (job-site profile)

Website: www.twitch.tv