6 ms·

This phenomenon is not exclusive to game development. Lots of people want to work for large, prominent companies like Google or FB, dreaming of working on cool

This phenomenon is not exclusive to game development. Lots of people want to work for large, prominent companies like Google or FB, dreaming of working on cool projects. But the reality usually turns out to be much less glamorous. Instead of being the guy who comes up with the next killer product or feature, you will likely end up as a small cog in a huge, well-oiled machine, optimising ads to increase some metric in the fifth decimal place.

yodsanklai 11y ago
but (I assume) you make more money than elsewhere with better working conditions, and a cool addition on your resume
- frozenport 11y ago
  Nope. In C++ land, you can get the same 130k salary at a 30 person company, that builds hardware devices.
  - buckbova 11y ago
    A big part of salary is location, but there's plenty of 100k to 150k jobs out there. I never see anything over that advertised.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - swalsh 11y ago
    The base is the same, but the equity might be worth significantly more.
  - minwcnt5 11y ago
    Google/FB engineers make a heck of a lot more than 130k, that's pretty much base entry level before bonuses and equity grants.
    - ryandrake 11y ago
      Maybe a few outliers, but not all or even most.
- ninjakeyboard 11y ago
  location is the biggest factor. I'm in TO and a sr developer might make 80-100k. In NYC, the same role is more like 150k. In toronto at least, contract work roughly doubles your income but you don't get benefits or equity.
seanwilson 11y ago
> . Lots of people want to work for large, prominent companies like Google or FB, dreaming of working on cool projects. But the reality usually turns out to be much less glamorous. Instead of being the guy who comes up with the next killer product or feature, you will likely end up as a small cog in a huge, well-oiled machine, optimising ads to increase some metric in the fifth decimal place. Can anyone add to how true this is for Amazon, Facebook, Google etc.? I imagine the problems the author found working on a large game is similar for most large projects. Not saying that small projects are better though, just different.
- kozukumi 11y ago
  I worked at FB for a year back in 2011 however things are still the same (so I am told by friends who still work there). Facebook make money from ads and selling data to people who want to better target ads. Because of this everything boils down to how do we get data we can sell from this? Yes you do get to work on interesting problems. Sometimes. Mostly it is quite boring and rather generic stuff though. The interesting parts of FB isn't the development side but the infrastructure side. Not many companies run at the same scale so you get experience with some crazy setups. One thing you have to be able to deal with at FB is change control. If you don't like working in an extremely strict environment when it comes to pushing an update you won't enjoy it there. While many people (myself included although not anymore) want to be a rockstar at these huge companies the reality is they are just like any other big company. Lots of rules and not a whole lot of freedom to "play" unless you really are a rockstar which, let's be honest, not many people are. You want freedom? Get a job that you enjoy and that pays the bills and play in your own time, which you will no doubt have much more of at a "normal" company.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    Wait, one of the things I've heard about Facebook is that there is almost no change control. Especially on the mobile app side, that people just add code to the app without any real oversight, which is why it's grown to such a large codebase.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
ninjakeyboard 11y ago
That's one of the things that I hear people say about Google - that you end up doing small unimportant work. Having seen the internals, I think that possibility is overstated. In my perspective, Google is a fairly good example of an egalitarian workplace where everyone (engineers) is equal to each other with ownership of what they work on and its success/failure. Accountability doesn't really get moved around - it's on you. That's my limited impression at least. I'm sure other people see it differently. http://blogs.wpcarey.asu.edu/knowit/googles-egalitarian-culture-education-evangelist-preaches-the-gospel-of-creativity-2/ http://blogs.wpcarey.asu.edu/knowit/googles-egalitarian-cult...
xlm1717 11y ago
It sounded like a big part of it for the author too was getting two projects canceled. You want to be the guy with the next killer product, and when you think you have it, the higher ups in the large, prominent company you work for decide that your project is not what they need to work on.

yodsanklai 11y ago

but (I assume) you make more money than elsewhere with better working conditions, and a cool addition on your resume

frozenport 11y ago
Nope. In C++ land, you can get the same 130k salary at a 30 person company, that builds hardware devices.
- buckbova 11y ago
  A big part of salary is location, but there's plenty of 100k to 150k jobs out there. I never see anything over that advertised.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- swalsh 11y ago
  The base is the same, but the equity might be worth significantly more.
- minwcnt5 11y ago
  Google/FB engineers make a heck of a lot more than 130k, that's pretty much base entry level before bonuses and equity grants.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Maybe a few outliers, but not all or even most.
ninjakeyboard 11y ago
location is the biggest factor. I'm in TO and a sr developer might make 80-100k. In NYC, the same role is more like 150k. In toronto at least, contract work roughly doubles your income but you don't get benefits or equity.

seanwilson 11y ago

> . Lots of people want to work for large, prominent companies like Google or FB, dreaming of working on cool projects. But the reality usually turns out to be much less glamorous. Instead of being the guy who comes up with the next killer product or feature, you will likely end up as a small cog in a huge, well-oiled machine, optimising ads to increase some metric in the fifth decimal place. Can anyone add to how true this is for Amazon, Facebook, Google etc.? I imagine the problems the author found working on a large game is similar for most large projects. Not saying that small projects are better though, just different.

kozukumi 11y ago
I worked at FB for a year back in 2011 however things are still the same (so I am told by friends who still work there). Facebook make money from ads and selling data to people who want to better target ads. Because of this everything boils down to how do we get data we can sell from this? Yes you do get to work on interesting problems. Sometimes. Mostly it is quite boring and rather generic stuff though. The interesting parts of FB isn't the development side but the infrastructure side. Not many companies run at the same scale so you get experience with some crazy setups. One thing you have to be able to deal with at FB is change control. If you don't like working in an extremely strict environment when it comes to pushing an update you won't enjoy it there. While many people (myself included although not anymore) want to be a rockstar at these huge companies the reality is they are just like any other big company. Lots of rules and not a whole lot of freedom to "play" unless you really are a rockstar which, let's be honest, not many people are. You want freedom? Get a job that you enjoy and that pays the bills and play in your own time, which you will no doubt have much more of at a "normal" company.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Wait, one of the things I've heard about Facebook is that there is almost no change control. Especially on the mobile app side, that people just add code to the app without any real oversight, which is why it's grown to such a large codebase.
- st3v3r 11y ago

ninjakeyboard 11y ago

That's one of the things that I hear people say about Google - that you end up doing small unimportant work. Having seen the internals, I think that possibility is overstated. In my perspective, Google is a fairly good example of an egalitarian workplace where everyone (engineers) is equal to each other with ownership of what they work on and its success/failure. Accountability doesn't really get moved around - it's on you. That's my limited impression at least. I'm sure other people see it differently. http://blogs.wpcarey.asu.edu/knowit/googles-egalitarian-culture-education-evangelist-preaches-the-gospel-of-creativity-2/ http://blogs.wpcarey.asu.edu/knowit/googles-egalitarian-cult...

xlm1717 11y ago

It sounded like a big part of it for the author too was getting two projects canceled. You want to be the guy with the next killer product, and when you think you have it, the higher ups in the large, prominent company you work for decide that your project is not what they need to work on.