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Are there any other fields where employers specifically seek out game engine programmers? This sounds ideal for me, but I like low-level C/C++/assembly program

Are there any other fields where employers specifically seek out game engine programmers? This sounds ideal for me, but I like low-level C/C++/assembly programming and wouldn't want to give that up for the web.

raverbashing 11y ago
Finance, Embedded development, OS development Compilers, JIT compilers Maintenance of old software
mikekchar 11y ago
As an ex C++ programmer who did embedded telecom (amongst other things), I've transitioned to web development. It's not really that different. In fact people with embedded skills can do very well because things like memory management and performance optimisation are very important in web development. Often people with actual experience in that area are in short supply. The main difference on the downside is a plethora of frameworks that often constrain your design badly. Of course, on any large project there is always a way to do things, and it is not always pleasant ;-) So it's not really so different. I also had to learn quite a lot about databases, something that I shied away from in my earlier days. Again, many frameworks try to shield you from database details, but they bugger up the object modelling so badly that you are much better off being quite aware of what is happening under the hood. On the plus side, code bases are generally very small. We're talking having to maintain small 10's of KLOC (and very often less than 10k code) as opposed to 100's of KLOC. I wouldn't say they are toy problems, but they are definitely on the small to medium size. You can pretty much understand all of how an app works. Frameworks often bring the total code size up to above 100 KLOC (yes, I have spent some time debugging Rails ;-)), but again, it's not something that would scare a seasoned dev. My main pleasures are being able to work with 100% free software tools from back to front. It's truly awesome to be able to debug and tweak anything I want. For frameworks and libraries, no longer do I have to depend on marginal documentation to see how something works -- I can just read the code. This is a massive plus. For me, the acceptance of unit testing as a normal development procedure has been wonderful. Not all web devs subscribe to it, and very few do it well, but it is at least a mainstream concept. Also the tools available for TDD are really great. Rspec style tools (including Jasmine) are worth their weight in gold. I think the biggest surprise for me making the transition was that there is a huge amount of complexity in web development. Yes, there are lots of people who do web development as a kind of paint by numbers, but honestly I've seen those kind of devs everywhere I've gone. If you are looking for a change, I wouldn't rule web development out.
xKingfisher 11y ago
From industry people I've talked to, browser/rendering engine teams have had success with and like ex game-engine developers, since the fields have a number of similar requirements.

raverbashing 11y ago

Finance, Embedded development, OS development Compilers, JIT compilers Maintenance of old software

mikekchar 11y ago

As an ex C++ programmer who did embedded telecom (amongst other things), I've transitioned to web development. It's not really that different. In fact people with embedded skills can do very well because things like memory management and performance optimisation are very important in web development. Often people with actual experience in that area are in short supply. The main difference on the downside is a plethora of frameworks that often constrain your design badly. Of course, on any large project there is always a way to do things, and it is not always pleasant ;-) So it's not really so different. I also had to learn quite a lot about databases, something that I shied away from in my earlier days. Again, many frameworks try to shield you from database details, but they bugger up the object modelling so badly that you are much better off being quite aware of what is happening under the hood. On the plus side, code bases are generally very small. We're talking having to maintain small 10's of KLOC (and very often less than 10k code) as opposed to 100's of KLOC. I wouldn't say they are toy problems, but they are definitely on the small to medium size. You can pretty much understand all of how an app works. Frameworks often bring the total code size up to above 100 KLOC (yes, I have spent some time debugging Rails ;-)), but again, it's not something that would scare a seasoned dev. My main pleasures are being able to work with 100% free software tools from back to front. It's truly awesome to be able to debug and tweak anything I want. For frameworks and libraries, no longer do I have to depend on marginal documentation to see how something works -- I can just read the code. This is a massive plus. For me, the acceptance of unit testing as a normal development procedure has been wonderful. Not all web devs subscribe to it, and very few do it well, but it is at least a mainstream concept. Also the tools available for TDD are really great. Rspec style tools (including Jasmine) are worth their weight in gold. I think the biggest surprise for me making the transition was that there is a huge amount of complexity in web development. Yes, there are lots of people who do web development as a kind of paint by numbers, but honestly I've seen those kind of devs everywhere I've gone. If you are looking for a change, I wouldn't rule web development out.

xKingfisher 11y ago

From industry people I've talked to, browser/rendering engine teams have had success with and like ex game-engine developers, since the fields have a number of similar requirements.