How Amy Schneider has juggled Jeopardy! and her job while keeping her long win streak a secret

The Ringer

Schneider, who on Monday became the holder of the second-longest winning streak in Jeopardy! history with her 39th victory, is introduced at the top of each episode as “an engineering manager from Oakland, California." But as Schneider points out to Jeopardy! book author Claire McNear, this has become a lie during her streak. “I actually after a bit stopped being a manager just because (Jeopardy!) was taking up so much of my time that I couldn’t give my team the attention they needed,” she says. Schneider now has a different position at the company that doesn’t involve managing direct reports. Schneider began taping her Jeopardy! streak on Sept. 28, and has had to fly to Los Angeles every Sunday night for two days of taping, fly home Tuesday night, then do her day job between Wednesday and Friday. "It’s funny because my boss and the vice president, who are the two people who really knew that I was missing so much time—neither of them really watches Jeopardy! and had no real conception of what it meant that I had to keep going down,” says Schneider. “I had to let them know that in a shocking development in the modern world, I was actually not going to have access to my phone for the taping days.” Meanwhile, Schneider is only allowed to reveal spoilers to a small group of people, including her girlfriend. “The rule of thumb they gave us is anyone who would have been at the taping if they had allowed an audience” was safe to tell, she says. Since the pandemic, Jeopardy! has taped without an audience.