Here’s what it’s like to work at Twitch, one of the hottest gaming companies in the U.S.

The lobby of Twitch's San Francisco offices. The lobby of Twitch's San Francisco offices. Photo: Avery Wong, Photo By Avery Wong / Courtesy Of Twitch Photo: Avery Wong, Photo By Avery Wong / Courtesy Of Twitch Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Here’s what it’s like to work at Twitch, one of the hottest gaming companies in the U.S. 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

The first thing greeting those entering Twitch's downtown San Francisco headquarters, even before they approach the company's imposing, lit-up logo affixed to an exposed brick wall, is a large TV screen. Arranged on it are nine tiles — a collage of nine feeds of Twitch users streaming on the platform at that moment, in real time.

There are a few of these monitors around the office in high-traffic spaces; they might display gamers as they play Fortnite or The Legend of Zelda. Or you might see other users or brands, or even parent company Amazon, streaming E-sports games, "social eating," movie marathons or knitting.

At any given moment, over a million users are watching something on Twitch, which was founded in 2011 by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear as an offshoot of the company's precursor outlet, Justin.tv. Justin.tv was at first a "lifecasting" site experiment that began in 2007, on which members could livestream whatever they were doing, however mundane. But by 2011, as they found, users were most often tuning in to watch live gaming channels, leading the founders to launch the game-centric Twitch Interactive.

A day in the life of a Twitch employee

It's grown a lot since then into what today is a fully-fledged entertainment company that's wildly attractive to prospective employees. But what sets Twitch apart from similar such organizations, say employees like Erin Wayne, the Head of Community Marketing, is that the communities on Twitch are the communities at Twitch.

"Our employees are also gamers, viewers, moderators, creators, and some of them are even prominent streamers themselves," Wayne says. "We've maintained a way to keep hold of the mutual passion between Twitch as a company and Twitch as a community, and it constantly drives us to be better and to innovate new products as a response to the community's ideas and needs."

These days, Twitch has evolved to feature more diverse categories of streams, but gaming — in a very broad capacity — is nevertheless still imbued in the work culture at Twitch. Art and visual installations stationed around the nine floors of the office were conceptualized and executed by select Twitch gamers and streamers. There are two "Instagram-ready" rooms equipped with impeccable lighting and a Twitch streaming set-up for employees to play with — "We like to live the product here," recruiters say — near a workshop room built for employee-run seminars.

Downstairs are a few 6v6 gaming rooms with stadium seating near a café with free coffee and smoothies. On the other side of the barista set-up is a salon filled with arcade games, pinball, cornhole, and myriad classic video game consoles. Around happy hour, this place begins to get busy.

"I think we have every console going back to ... there's an Atari here," says University Programs Manager Thomas Tessier, adding that the room's "'Game of Thrones' pinball is (also) very popular as of late."

For non-gamers — and there are an abundance of them here, too — there are ubiquitous nods to more mainstream pop culture. Conference rooms are themed for Millennial and Gen-X interests, paying homage to Netflix's "Stranger Things," the "Harry Potter" series, and Bob Ross, who was the subject of a marathon streamed on Twitch several years back.

"There's actually a Bob Ross wig they have on a mannequin in there," Tessier adds.

Photo: Avery Wong, Photo By Avery Wong / Courtesy Of Twitch Art inside Twitch's San Francisco offices.

As is evidenced by the presence of "happy little trees" near meeting spaces, Twitch is gradually moving its programming towards including general entertainment, cooking and sports content. The work culture is beginning to reflect that; in addition to "The Joy of Painting," Twitch has also facilitated marathons starring Julia Child and the Power Rangers. Their parent company Amazon now also occasionally uses Twitch to stream Prime original shows.

Those types of non-gaming streams are getting more popular, and these days, employees might catch what's playing on one such channel on a monitor screen inside the company's lobby or cafeteria. Or it might be more adorable content.

"One channel I watch sometimes is all kittens," says Brielle Villablanca, Twitch's new Director of Corporate Communications. "Kittens, just playing. I could watch it for hours and hours and hours. (Twitch) is just all kinds of weird, vibrant, unique people and I think that's represented in our culture that we have in the office too."

Photo: Avery Wong, Photo By Avery Wong / Courtesy Of Twitch A monitor shows a game screen inside Twitch's San Francisco offices.

Another perk specific to Twitch underscores its prioritizing of understanding its users: paid entry into a prominent gaming or entertainment conference. Once a year, employees can hit up TwitchCon, Twitch's own event for professional and amateur streamers, or something else entirely, like Comic-Cons and e-sports competitions, on the company's dime.

One difference between Twitch's staffers and external users, however, is a big one: free food. Twitch's cafeteria offers three meals a day to employees, including things like sandwiches, pizzas, burgers, tacos and salads. The "Twitch 20," say Tessier and University Recruiter Gina Greenwalt, is real, particularly on days like today, when there are additional special culinary events.

"This is (for) Doughnut Day," Tessier explains, pointing out the doughnut display-in-progress. "They did a beignet cook-off last month. They're doing doughnuts today though and you can vote; you can buy tickets to participate and it goes to a nonprofit. This time it goes to Larkin Street Youth."

There are a lot of these kinds of extracurricular events around the office. Twitch welcomed star Harry Shum Jr. ( "Crazy Rich Asians," "Glee") for an Asian American Heritage talk last month. Sharmeen Browarek Chapp, Twitch's Senior Director of Product, also recalls a trivia night for Women's History month, which "brought employees together to discuss important issues around women in tech through a really fun event."

Photo: Avery Wong, Photo By Avery Wong / Courtesy Of Twitch The cafeteria inside the Twitch offices in San Francisco.

What it takes to get hired at Twitch, from its recruiters

But for all the creative perks, there's still a lot of work to do. For employees like Greenwalt and Tessier, it helps that some defining characteristics of being at Twitch are autonomy and choice.

"As an individual, I have a lot of ownership over my time," Greenwalt says. "(Tessier) and I did a 30-minute, 'We-need-to-get-outside' (break) so we went to a candle store and worked late. But we were able to make that decision, to be able to say this is what needs to be done to get the job done. People who are really good about owning that and feel empowered by it will do really well at places like this. People who need a lot of structure might not."

Besides control over their schedule, Tessier says candidates today are looking for companies that are a "value fit" for them. A company like Twitch, which offers employees a chance to be part of what he calls "a pop culture phenom," is an alluring one.

Photo: Avery Wong, Photo By Avery Wong / Courtesy Of Twitch Employees play an arcade game inside Twitch's San Francisco offices.

"People should join Twitch if they want to work at the forefront of technology," says Browarek Chapp. "We are paving the way for live-streaming and live-interactive content. I believe this is the future of how people will consume all digital content, beyond our current focus of gaming."

At a turning point for the company, Twitch's user base is proliferating rapidly. Now the company is in "hyper-growth mode" too, as Greenwalt says.

That doesn't mean they'll hire just anyone. Being one of the hottest entertainment companies in business today means they're generating a lot of interest, so it's not particularly easy to get your foot in the door.

So what exactly do company recruiters like Greenwalt and Tessier look for? Candidates who are dynamic, flexible, kind and open-minded. They need to be able to adapt to evolving objectives and prognosticate, as Tessier says, what's "around the corner." But they especially need to be enthusiastic about their own interests, whether that's Pokémon Go, "Game of Thrones," FIFA, Super Smash Brothers or something else entirely, maybe even on the outskirts of traditional fandom.

"People who can show that they're unabashedly passionate about something they do, whether it's for fun or work, is a really nice cultural fit for us," Greenwalt says. "We think that passion translates to your work, ultimately."

Tessier, who had run off in search of doughnuts, returns with a few for the table. Besides the free sugar rushes, I ask, what's the most compelling reason to work here?

"Were growing and changing every day," he says. "We're live. I keep coming back to (ownership) but we truly are a space where we're going to continue to grow. You can take on your projects in a meaningful way."

The biggest selling point for him? "I'd say come be a part of the entertainment revolution."

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGate producer. Email: apereira@sfchronicle.com | Twitter: @alyspereira

