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Safe and Secure! posted:So what kind of companies do I want to work for if I want to maximize my hourly compensation? Financial companies by far pay the most, but generally require good domain knowledge of financial concepts. The only exception might be if you have some rare skill that is critical to a company.
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Jun 26, 2012 13:33
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You have some wacky companies in the US paying interns with no experience $70K a year. That puts you straight into the top ~10% of earners in the US or something. Traditionally Investment banks pay the most, certainly did when I was contracting to JP Morgan. But with the global downturn harder to get those positions. Also they will grind your soul to dust. The general rule is, the more interesting the job the lower the salary.
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Jun 26, 2012 13:56
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shrughes posted:70k is what I got in Boston for my first job out of college, in 2008, working 30-40 hours a week. Non-sucky interns interning in the SF bay area in 2012 make more than that. As a comparison - I live in an area with a low cost of living and developers straight out of college make around $45K. $70K is closer to the median for what senior developers pull in. But I also pay something like 92% less for housing so I guess I won't knock it v  vAramoro posted:The general rule is, the more interesting the job the lower the salary. It's true 
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Jun 26, 2012 14:23
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Goop posted:I have heard many times now that the game industry is a pain to work for. Could anyone elaborate past the whole "deadlines suck" part? Any stories or grievances would be interesting to me. This makes me wonder... what project planning methodology are game companies using these days? In my experience, working insane amounts of overtime is a direct result of poor project planning, not something intrinsic to any particular industry. The games industry is tough because, other than overtime, it's a really desirable industry to work in, and thus tends to attract a lot of top-notch talent, so it's harder to get hired. And because they have so many qualified applicants, the pay is generally lower. That's not to say that they pay poorly, but most likely any given developer could move into another industry and get a sizeable pay increase.
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Jun 26, 2012 14:33
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Goop posted:I have heard many times now that the game industry is a pain to work for. Could anyone elaborate past the whole "deadlines suck" part? Any stories or grievances would be interesting to me. http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
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Jun 26, 2012 14:56
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Ithaqua posted:This makes me wonder... what project planning methodology are game companies using these days? In my experience, working insane amounts of overtime is a direct result of poor project planning, not something intrinsic to any particular industry. The deadlines tend to be be fairly hard deadlines in the Games Industry which is the problem, slippage is not a realistic option for many of theses. A 2 week slip is the difference between being in the shops for Christmas or not. It's a consumer product unlike most programming, so it has all those consumer pressures that most other jobs don't have. And at the end of the day people will do the crazy hours without quitting so why would it try to change. Aramoro fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jun 26, 2012 |
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Jun 26, 2012 15:10
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You look at that, and it puts Valve Time into perspective. People make fun of them all the time for it, them and Blizzard too, but in the end of the day, they decided to fix scope and features, and it takes as long as it takes. I imagine that decision bears fruit in the HR department.
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Jun 26, 2012 15:19
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EA is a notoriously lovely company even from the outside, so this really doesn't surprise me. Ever since their troubles with Origin, I have avoided them like the plague. Aramoro posted:It's a consumer product unlike most programming, so it has all those consumer pressures that most other jobs don't have. This is something I hardly took into account and that explains a lot. I'm not deep into anything yet, but I would imagine the work would be much more gratifying for me. It seems clear that if done right, the results are worth worth long hours.
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Jun 26, 2012 18:27
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Goop posted:This is something I hardly took into account and that explains a lot. I'm not deep into anything yet, but I would imagine the work would be much more gratifying for me. It seems clear that if done right, the results are worth worth long hours.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:26
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Aramoro posted:The deadlines tend to be be fairly hard deadlines in the Games Industry which is the problem, slippage is not a realistic option for many of theses. A 2 week slip is the difference between being in the shops for Christmas or not. It's a consumer product unlike most programming, so it has all those consumer pressures that most other jobs don't have. Good points -- I'm used to working on software that's released iteratively, with releases coming every couple of weeks containing new features. Game development is a very different beast, where the result is a boxed product that is unlikely to receive major new features through a free update.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:28
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Don't ever work for free. Not only you're screwing yourself out of your deserved money but you're also encouraging EA-like "bussiness strategies" and making it worse for all your colleagues.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:31
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Goop posted:I'm not deep into anything yet, but I would imagine the work would be much more gratifying for me. It seems clear that if done right, the results are worth worth long hours. This is why they can treat you like poo poo.
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Jun 26, 2012 19:34
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Well I guess this really is what I needed to hear. Thanks for the heads up, because it will probably end up saving me a bunch of wasted time. I guess I can only dream of a life when after a tedious day of writing code, I can at least go home and play with it. vvvv Thanks. Like I said, I'm not deep enough for anything to really matter at this point. Even so, this thread does give me some hope that I'll find something that meets the balance of good pay, good hours, and still enjoyable. sleppy fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jun 26, 2012 |
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Jun 26, 2012 20:15
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You shouldn't be too down - There are interesting jobs out there - even in finance. I worked as a RAD Developer for some macro-economists for three years which was really interesting, and now I work as a tools developer in HFT. Not everything in the finance world involves writing glue code. Also don't be too down if you find out you don't fancy programming at the end of a long day. I love my job, but at home I just tend to read up on theory and fall asleep to Channel 9 videos. If you're lucky at work you'll have all the best tools and a great build system, DBAs and a whole host of other infrastructure that makes life easier. At home you probably won't.
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Jun 26, 2012 20:34
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IMlemon posted:Don't ever work for free. Not only you're screwing yourself out of your deserved money but you're also encouraging EA-like "bussiness strategies" and making it worse for all your colleagues. Counterpoint - if you've screwed something up badly, unpaid overtime can be warranted.
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Jun 26, 2012 21:01
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Ithaqua posted:Good points -- I'm used to working on software that's released iteratively, with releases coming every couple of weeks containing new features. There's no real reason games couldn't do this, they could probably milk even more money out of it with subscription, but they're sort of stuck in this Truman Show world where the only way to win is to have a bigger boom launch than their competitors.
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Jun 26, 2012 21:16
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baquerd posted:Counterpoint - if you've screwed something up badly, unpaid overtime can be warranted.
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Jun 26, 2012 21:43
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Ithaqua posted:Good points -- I'm used to working on software that's released iteratively, with releases coming every couple of weeks containing new features.
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Jun 26, 2012 22:02
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Plorkyeran posted:Unless you're being paid a salary appropriate for someone who is perfect and never makes mistakes of any kind, cleaning up after your mistakes is a normal part of every job. It's basic good management to put the onus on management to reduce mistakes through good policy, but also expect that mistakes will happen because there is no such thing as perfect code.
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Jun 26, 2012 23:32
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pigdog posted:There's no reason games can't be developed under the same principle, indeed I bet many teams do. Certainly before, but perhaps also after the launch.
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Jun 27, 2012 02:50
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Apologies if this is painfully open-ended: I graduated with a nice GPA and a degree in CS and math about a year ago. I took a job at a local startup-type venture where I picked up C# (4.0) as well as some much-needed experience with SQL. I left amicably a few months back for family/medical reasons and will be looking for work again in a few months. I've been a Ruby fan for a while and lately I've been working on a small side project in Ruby, as well as introducing myself to Rails. I'm pretty enthusiastic about programming. I've considered freelancing/contracting but I'm worried I don't know enough to get started. So-
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Jun 27, 2012 03:32
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Shovelshark posted:
New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jun 27, 2012 |
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Jun 27, 2012 03:50
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Sindai posted:PC games maybe, but console makers charge for patch distribution.
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Jun 27, 2012 07:04
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pigdog posted:We're simply talking about development process. Not every build in a continuous intergration/deployment needs to be actually released. The idea is to have new release-ready versions every iteration, and if/when such decision is made, they can pretty much simply take the latest one and release that to public. It doesn't really matter what your process is if you have a hard deadline from your publisher, a publish or go bankrupt deadline kinda deal. Imagine you're making a movie, you film 30 mins, edit it up perfectly, complete ready for the next iteration, do another 30 mins of filming. This sounds like an insane way to make a movie as the whole item need to be edited as a whole. This is also an insane way to make a game. A half finished game, even if that half is release quality, will still absolutely tank. A lot of the delays in games developments come from not having the assets completed on time, and you cannot release without them in place.
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Jun 27, 2012 09:40
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Shovelshark posted:
1) You should put it down, it's good experience. The flip side is it would look like you'd been doing nothing for a year. Gaps in CV's can look bad in that respect. Just say what you did, they'll ask you why you left so tell them. 2) I don't know the US market but here I don't think you'd find any work as a contractor. From my experience contracting in the Investment banking industry it's usually more senior people. Also it's high pressure and long hours. 3) Ithaqua is right here pretty much. I would say focus on your fundamentals, know design patterns like MVC. Solid Database knowledge and tools like ORM's (Hibernate for example). In the end it doesn't really matter if you're the worlds greatest C# programmer, if you don't know your design patterns etc then it's hard to show why you're good. 4) I work 9-5 5 days a weeks, no hassles really. But then my perspective might be different to yours. This is my job and I don't do it at home. The work doesn't need to be interesting it just needs to pay so I can spend quality time with my friends and family. I don't think I could trade more interesting work for less time with my wife. Good luck in your search though, I would say don't be too picky on your second job out the gate unless you have no need to work.
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Jun 27, 2012 09:57
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Aramoro posted:Imagine you're making a movie, you film 30 mins, edit it up perfectly, complete ready for the next iteration, do another 30 mins of filming. Episodic content worked perfectly well for Dickens.
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Jun 27, 2012 12:25
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Zombywuf posted:Episodic content worked perfectly well for Dickens. It was also being consumed in episodes, the episodes themselves where the finished product. If he was producing a serial for a publisher then he would have deadlines to meet, irrelevant how small the section of work was. If a story was being produced for a weekly publication, then we would need a complete section every week, hard to just tell your publisher you don't have one this week. Aramoro fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Jun 27, 2012 |
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Jun 27, 2012 12:38
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Aramoro posted:It was also being consumed in episodes, the episodes themselves where the finished product. If he was producing a serial for a publisher then he would have deadlines to meet, irrelevant how small the section of work was. If a story was being produced for a weekly publication, then we would need a complete section every week, hard to just tell your publisher you don't have one this week. Yes, but it is easier to, for example, produce a complete set of assets for a single episode than for a whole game. In general 10 small deadlines are just easier to cope with than 1 big deadline. Everyone knows where they are and have constant feedback.
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Jun 27, 2012 12:44
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Zombywuf posted:Yes, but it is easier to, for example, produce a complete set of assets for a single episode than for a whole game. In general 10 small deadlines are just easier to cope with than 1 big deadline. Everyone knows where they are and have constant feedback. doing Agile iteration etc is all good and will make the work more manageable but it doesn't change the fact that when your publisher tells you that you need a demo for E3 then you have a very hard deadline at that point. If your Demo is poo poo because you didn't complete enough then you've just tanked your game.
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Jun 27, 2012 12:59
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Aramoro posted:2) I don't know the US market but here I don't think you'd find any work as a contractor. From my experience contracting in the Investment banking industry it's usually more senior people. Also it's high pressure and long hours. There are tax and regulatory incentives for financial companies (soft dollar spending) to hire contractors, so contractors can be all over the board from entry level operations to lead developer.
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Jun 27, 2012 13:15
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Shovelshark posted:Am I too young to consider contracting, and is it as great a deal as it sounds (set your own schedule, etc)? I've heard of working for a staffing company and striking out on your own after a few years, but those sorts of companies don't seem very well regarded around here. I might break from orthodoxy a bit here. I actually started at my current job on a contract to hire. The company I'm working for now didn't even publicly list the position - they had a recruiting firm that consistently brought them good Ruby developers, and decided it was much cheaper to keep paying them to find candidates than to deal with it themselves. I worked with a wonderful recruiter who cared about both me & the company, and couldn't have been happier with the experience. That being said, everything I've heard says there are plenty of bad staffing companies out there whose only interest is pushing you into a position as fast as possible to get the commission. But contracting is an option even at this point in your career. You'll almost certainly be doing W2 contracting, where you are technically an employee of the contracting agency, rather than 1099 contracting where you are a true independent contractor. That can be good, though, as there are less tax concerns to think about. Ask your former coworkers if anyone knows good recruiters, or any bad ones to avoid
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Jun 27, 2012 15:18
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baquerd posted:There are tax and regulatory incentives for financial companies (soft dollar spending) to hire contractors, so contractors can be all over the board from entry level operations to lead developer. I don't really know about that, I'm just talking from personal experience as an independent contractor. I've never come across a graduate contractor as it were, though I am sure they exist. Soft dollar spending has to be the reason for it in one of the place I was which was paying £400-£800 as it's day rate for 30 guys for no discernible reason (Unless the reason was they wanted awful code? That's another thing, contractor heavy workplaces tend to have awful codebases) . Contract to hire is a good way to get a foot in the door although the day rates on those jobs tend to be less.
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Jun 27, 2012 15:30
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Aramoro posted:doing Agile iteration etc is all good and will make the work more manageable but it doesn't change the fact that when your publisher tells you that you need a demo for E3 then you have a very hard deadline at that point. If your Demo is poo poo because you didn't complete enough then you've just tanked your game. edit: In other words, if the publisher asks the devs how's the progress, it's either "It's really awesome but it's not working yet, so you can't see anything, just trust us ok", or "Sure, here's the latest build; you can see we're missing 60% of the gameworld and we haven't even started on the soundtrack, but this week we added this new AI and whatnot". Also important would be that the claims of how far the latter team is along would be backed up by unit tests. pigdog fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Jun 27, 2012 |
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Jun 27, 2012 16:05
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pigdog posted:You're not seeing the forest for the trees. The difference is that in an iterative, continuous development process, the product is always functional, always tested for what it has, and ostensibly ready for a release package to be generated at any time, even if it's still missing 90% of the features the client may ultimately desire. It may have stick figure graphics, missing cutscenes and one gun to shoot with as opposed to fifty, but what it has is working and stays working for the rest of the development process. As opposed to the whole thing being run the first time a week before deadline with bugs all over, and noone even having thought about, say, the installer for it. As far as I know, it's pretty common for game developers to first develop a very small portion of the game, just one small level, one enemy, one weapon, et cetera, but to production levels, and then gradually expand the scope until they hit a deadline or money runs out. Agile development with continuous integration is what I do day to day so I have fair idea how it works. No one, no matter how retarded is going to try to write the whole thing in a oner and fire it up once you think it's done. This is not a woods for the trees kinda issue we're talking about different aspects. If you release an E3 demo where all your models are stick figures but otherwise functional it will tank. In this case the deadline is hard and outside the control of development so if you suffer any slippages at all the only option is to do more work in the same time frame.
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Jun 27, 2012 16:19
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In any case, it makes good sense to front-load as much of the things that may cause unexpected problems and delays (testing, integration, etc) as possible. Even for game development. I doubt any game would "tank" if a demo isn't functional for E3 or any other tradeshow; I'd reckon it's more likely for a publisher to lose patience and trust in the developers for having delivered nothing usable in the timeframe. In enterprise solutions which I'm more familiar with, I feel very confident in saying it's a huge deal to be able to constantly release and quickly react to changing requirements, as opposed to taking a huge amount of time and being forced to launch the whole thing half baked.
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Jun 27, 2012 16:31
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pigdog posted:In any case, it makes good sense to front-load as much of the things that may cause unexpected problems and delays (testing, integration, etc) as possible. Even for game development. I doubt any game would "tank" if a demo isn't functional for E3 or any other tradeshow; I'd reckon it's more likely for a publisher to lose patience and trust in the developers for having delivered nothing usable in the timeframe. In enterprise solutions which I'm more familiar with, I feel very confident in saying it's a huge deal to be able to constantly release and quickly react to changing requirements, as opposed to taking a huge amount of time and being forced to launch the whole thing half baked. A lot of game people actually DON'T want to know what the real schedule is. The publisher doesn't want to know because it can book the revenue in such and such quarter without feeling guilty, and the developers don't want to know because if they plan to work their software engineers 80 hours a week, they can get sued, but if it just happens, they're all heroes and get bonuses.
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Jun 27, 2012 16:43
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Being able to release constantly is great, but if it's not finished when you're due to go gold then you're not finished simple as that. Doesn't matter how good and stable your game is at that point it's still unfinished. If you haven't met your minimum viable product by the hard deadline you've been given your publishers will get pissed. So if you must hit your MVP by a certain date all your planning and continuous integration is going to do is make what you release better, not any more complete. Any slippages can only be made up for by working more, as the deadline is fixed. Look at something like Assassins Creed III, it's release date is the 30th of October to be ready for the holiday season. Everything is in motion for that release, Ubisoft will have it in shops on the 30th. So Ubisoft Montreal will do everything is takes to get it released on time, including working crazy hours. Though I would assume everything is pretty much done bar the shouting on that particular release.
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Jun 27, 2012 16:49
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Whatever your point is, it's beyond the realm of software development.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:24
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Onsite went well. HR douche was there but he sat in a corner quietly and made nary a peep. It was a panel interview with the CIO, VP of App Dev, Microsoft team lead, and the .NET Sr Dev. Most of the technical questions were from the senior, and he liked all my answers, even when I said that I was light on jQuery. He said that most of the team is and he's been working with them to get up on it. They asked a couple times to make sure I was available with a standard 2 week. That's potentially a good sign. Didn't leave with a verbal offer, though. Potentially a bad sign.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:44
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aBagorn posted:Didn't leave with a verbal offer, though. Potentially a bad sign. That's not necessarily bad. A lot of people interviewed you, so they presumably all get a say in the process. Here's how we always did it: After the interview, we all went into the conference room right away. We'd have a discussion on the candidate, then we voted. Everyone wrote "YES" or "NO" on a sticky note. There's no "MAYBE" -- if you weren't 100% sure, it's a no. If it's unanimous, perfect. If there are any "no"s, there's a discussion. For example, if someone flubbed some easy stuff but was clearly really nervous, they might get some slack. The CTO always had veto power, but since he'd hired a team of like-thinking folks, there was rarely a case where he hated someone that everyone else loved. After we'd arrived as a "hire" decision, that's when offers started getting made and salaries hammered out. A good sign is if they start talking more casually toward the end of the interview, or start telling you about how you're going to love working there.
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Jun 27, 2012 17:58
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