I know this post probably wasn’t intended to be malicious but it is insane you wrote this without realizing how it’s emanating privilege and not understanding why people can’t find a job.
I graduated over a year ago from my CS degree. Excellent GPA, with honors. I’ve been learning game dev since college and have been (sort of) doing it professionally since graduation. I’ve done a 4-month internship, two mediocre part-time jobs, some freelancing, and I still can’t find a proper job. The industry is collapsing and the job market is flooded with talent that have a dozen years of experience. Combine that with the fact that I live in a poor country where there aren’t many game dev jobs and companies are scaling down work from home, and finding one is a nightmare.
Let me get this straight. The blog post says you’ve been working for 10 years, maybe more. You already have insane amounts of experience and a past history with companies.
So what did I do right?
Maybe working in the industry for a dozen years has something to do with being able to find a job easily. If you had <5 years of experience you would have struggled to reach an interview. If you did reach an interview, someone with a more stacked CV would take that job instead. This has some “Why don’t millennials just buy a house?” energy.
I wouldn’t limit yourself to game dev and you might consider looking for a software product tech support role to get your “foot in the door”.
Obviously if your heart is set on game dev then ignore me. But getting some experience in software dev in general will help you be able to pivot to other roles or sectors.
I’ve got twenty five years in and I know how good I’ve got it. I may not always be able to get the job I want, but I don’t ever have to worry about not working. That’s an incredible luxury. But also, unfortunately it really sucks training up completely green developers. They often contribute negative value to the team and then once you finally get them to the point where you can start relying on them, they leave or your team gets broken up. That’s not the fault of young developers at all, but it’s just a reality we all have to navigate. I do enjoy working with enthusiastic and curious people, and experience is certainly no guarantee of that. And I like having new perspectives and skills, even if I hate to crush their expectations with the reality of development. We currently can’t use fucking lambdas because they aren’t supported on our ancient version of Spring.
I’ve heard this a lot and I get it, but I feel like there’s a breaking point where most juniors just won’t put up with it and there will be a drought of genuinely good talent in the industry. Personally the vast majority of people I know have given up on working whatever they wanted to work in (Embedded systems, cybersecurity, gaming, etc) and just became web developers or settle for whatever “easy” jobs they could find. Ironically you catch companies that don’t hire juniors say things like “It’s so hard to find anyone that cares” or recruiters saying hiring for one spot takes months because they can’t find the perfect candidate. Something has to change imo, the path should become clearer than telling everyone to get 5 years of experience then come back when they’re ready.
This isn’t mentioning how recruiters now rely on AI to scan a CV and filter people. It doesn’t even matter how good you are most of the time or what amazing projects you could make, you’ll get filtered if you don’t have that arbitrary thing they’re asking for.
I completely agree. The experience sucks. I almost think programming would be better to follow a skilled trade path like electricians or something with apprenticeships and the like. The current system isn’t working for anyone, really. I mean I suppose it works for people like me but that’s not sustainable.
The thing is, it works like this in certain countries. At least in Switzerland and Germany it is possible to make an apprenticeship as a programmer. This means there is a structured path for the vocational education that must meet certain regulatory criteria. Normally this takes 3-4 years to finish and includes both, working at a company as well as visiting vocational school.
College is often done after finishing one’s apprenticeship to broaden the understanding of more complex or advanced topics like security, architecture, project management, advanced math etc.
I don’t understand why this system is not more common in other places. Programming (not CS) is very much like a craft and to large degrees can be taught as/similar to one.
there will be a drought of genuinely good talent in the industry.
You’re exactly right, and there’s actually already such a drought. We had this same conversation 15 years ago and it doesn’t feel like we’ve made much progress.
has to change imo, the path should become clearer than telling everyone to get 5 years of experience then come back when they’re ready.
Absolutely, it must change. We need to find ways to do better.
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I know this post probably wasn’t intended to be malicious but it is insane you wrote this without realizing how it’s emanating privilege and not understanding why people can’t find a job.
I graduated over a year ago from my CS degree. Excellent GPA, with honors. I’ve been learning game dev since college and have been (sort of) doing it professionally since graduation. I’ve done a 4-month internship, two mediocre part-time jobs, some freelancing, and I still can’t find a proper job. The industry is collapsing and the job market is flooded with talent that have a dozen years of experience. Combine that with the fact that I live in a poor country where there aren’t many game dev jobs and companies are scaling down work from home, and finding one is a nightmare.
Let me get this straight. The blog post says you’ve been working for 10 years, maybe more. You already have insane amounts of experience and a past history with companies.
Maybe working in the industry for a dozen years has something to do with being able to find a job easily. If you had <5 years of experience you would have struggled to reach an interview. If you did reach an interview, someone with a more stacked CV would take that job instead. This has some “Why don’t millennials just buy a house?” energy.
I wouldn’t limit yourself to game dev and you might consider looking for a software product tech support role to get your “foot in the door”.
Obviously if your heart is set on game dev then ignore me. But getting some experience in software dev in general will help you be able to pivot to other roles or sectors.
I’ve got twenty five years in and I know how good I’ve got it. I may not always be able to get the job I want, but I don’t ever have to worry about not working. That’s an incredible luxury. But also, unfortunately it really sucks training up completely green developers. They often contribute negative value to the team and then once you finally get them to the point where you can start relying on them, they leave or your team gets broken up. That’s not the fault of young developers at all, but it’s just a reality we all have to navigate. I do enjoy working with enthusiastic and curious people, and experience is certainly no guarantee of that. And I like having new perspectives and skills, even if I hate to crush their expectations with the reality of development. We currently can’t use fucking lambdas because they aren’t supported on our ancient version of Spring.
I’ve heard this a lot and I get it, but I feel like there’s a breaking point where most juniors just won’t put up with it and there will be a drought of genuinely good talent in the industry. Personally the vast majority of people I know have given up on working whatever they wanted to work in (Embedded systems, cybersecurity, gaming, etc) and just became web developers or settle for whatever “easy” jobs they could find. Ironically you catch companies that don’t hire juniors say things like “It’s so hard to find anyone that cares” or recruiters saying hiring for one spot takes months because they can’t find the perfect candidate. Something has to change imo, the path should become clearer than telling everyone to get 5 years of experience then come back when they’re ready.
This isn’t mentioning how recruiters now rely on AI to scan a CV and filter people. It doesn’t even matter how good you are most of the time or what amazing projects you could make, you’ll get filtered if you don’t have that arbitrary thing they’re asking for.
I completely agree. The experience sucks. I almost think programming would be better to follow a skilled trade path like electricians or something with apprenticeships and the like. The current system isn’t working for anyone, really. I mean I suppose it works for people like me but that’s not sustainable.
The thing is, it works like this in certain countries. At least in Switzerland and Germany it is possible to make an apprenticeship as a programmer. This means there is a structured path for the vocational education that must meet certain regulatory criteria. Normally this takes 3-4 years to finish and includes both, working at a company as well as visiting vocational school. College is often done after finishing one’s apprenticeship to broaden the understanding of more complex or advanced topics like security, architecture, project management, advanced math etc.
I don’t understand why this system is not more common in other places. Programming (not CS) is very much like a craft and to large degrees can be taught as/similar to one.
You’re exactly right, and there’s actually already such a drought. We had this same conversation 15 years ago and it doesn’t feel like we’ve made much progress.
Absolutely, it must change. We need to find ways to do better.
This guy’s got tiger blood.