Paramount+ internship · Summer 2026
A side project I took on myself, as both the PM and the engineer. The TV hosts, everyone votes from their own phone, and nobody installs anything.
Start. The host taps "Start a game" on the TV, and a QR code appears.
Join. Everyone scans it, picks a nickname, and chooses up to three moods.
Swipe. Everyone swipes the same 10 movies on their phone.
Pick. The TV shows the top three. Tap the winner to start watching.
If it's a tie, everyone ranks their top three in a final round.
Seven things I did as the PM, in order.
My friends and I once scrolled for a movie so long that it ruined the night. This happens a lot. U.S. viewers spend about 12 minutes deciding what to watch (Nielsen, 2025). The catalog wasn't the problem. One person holds the remote, and nobody wants to be the one who picks.
The host has the Apple TV and the subscription. Everyone else just has a phone, and it might be an Android. So guests join from their browser, with no app and no account.
Has the Apple TV and the subscription.
Joins from their browser, with no app and no account.
I met six times with Paramount's VP of Product Management, Streaming Innovation. We talked through the overall design, where the game should live, and how people would actually use it. Those talks moved Verdict from Tinder-style swiping between phones to a Jackbox-style game on the TV.
I ran a playtest with about eight interns and took notes by hand. Their biggest ask was picking by mood instead of genre, so I rebuilt the picker around moods. I also demoed it to senior leaders from several teams and a family at home.
"I can totally see this changing the way I browse content."
"I wish I had this for my last movie night."
I had six weeks, so I kept only what gets a room from "what should we watch?" to a pick. I said no to accounts, an iPhone-only app, and AI recommendations. Each one would have turned Verdict back into a regular streaming app.
Verdict didn't ship, so these are the numbers I'd launch with.
I also planned for what could break it. Spotty Wi-Fi falls back to the local network, ties go to a final round, and the game only stores a nickname, which is deleted when the game ends.
Games where the winner starts playing within 5 minutes
How many guests join, and time to a pick (goal: under 90 seconds)
People still use My List and watch as much as before
In my last week, I demoed Verdict to Paramount's SVP of Innovation and Emerging Platforms and the VP of Product Management, Streaming Innovation. They said it filled a real need and saw a market for it. They said I shouldn't be afraid if this ends up showing up on my screen one day. It was my last week, so the project ended there.
I built this a bit siloed. Next time, I'd do user research before I start building, so the idea isn't just living in my own head.
SwiftUI on the Apple TV, a plain web page for phones, and Firebase to pass votes between them. I used Claude Code to build fast, but the product calls were mine. When it pushed an Apple-only design, I kept it open to Android, because most living rooms aren't all iPhones.
SwiftUI on the Apple TV
Firebase
A plain web page
