4 ms·

> there just aren't any [senior] candidates around I think that statement is almost certainly false. Offer better pay, conditions and interesting work that ha

> there just aren't any [senior] candidates around I think that statement is almost certainly false. Offer better pay, conditions and interesting work that has career prospects for the people when they leave, and make it known you are doing this, and I think you will have plenty of interested, good candidates. (Unless you make crappy games infested with 15s gameplay alternating with 30s brain-polluting ads, and that's for the people who paid for the "ad-free" feature. I jest not - I just turned down a recruiter for a games company looking for someone in a senior role, after I researched the company and the first few reviews I looked at showed the games fit the above description. I copied the reviews over to the recruiter and said this this is why I could not imagine myself working there in a salaried role.)

gambiting 7y ago
I work for one of the largest developers in the world - the career prospects and attractiveness of work are both not an issue. I'm surrounded by people who have worked here 15, 20, even 25 years, we pretty much never let people go unless they want to leave and try something else, and generally the company tries to bend over to accomodate any wishes towards your dream career path(I personally know several people who changed their speciality within company just because they wanted to, and the company did everything it could to accomodate such changes) - you can also move to any of our 40+ studios across the world if you so desire(there is a process, but no one is going to stop you from transferring if you want to do it). Pretty much everyone here has worked on at least one title that sold 10+ million copies - it's a pretty good place to work all things considered. No, the main and only problem is pay, and it all stems from the fact that there are hundreds of applicants willing to apply for junior positions, some of which I am certain would literally chop their own leg off for the opportunity to work in video games - if it was legal they would literally agree to work for free. So they all start on some extremely low salary(especially considering that actually, our standard for hiring programmers seems extremely high and I have no doubts that those people could find much better paid jobs elsewhere), but obviously that leads to problems further down the line. But, just because we have thousands of applicants for junior positions, that doesn't mean we have as many for say Senior roles - those see barely anyone applying, and yes, I'm 100% convinced it's purely because of pay. And the pay is what it is, because HR considers it unacceptable to pay new hires more than what we pay people who have advanced through the ranks naturally(which obviously cannot be a lot, seeing as your starting salary as a junior was so low, even if you somehow through some miracle managed 10% increase every year that's still not a lot by the time you get promoted to senior).

gambiting 7y ago

I work for one of the largest developers in the world - the career prospects and attractiveness of work are both not an issue. I'm surrounded by people who have worked here 15, 20, even 25 years, we pretty much never let people go unless they want to leave and try something else, and generally the company tries to bend over to accomodate any wishes towards your dream career path(I personally know several people who changed their speciality within company just because they wanted to, and the company did everything it could to accomodate such changes) - you can also move to any of our 40+ studios across the world if you so desire(there is a process, but no one is going to stop you from transferring if you want to do it). Pretty much everyone here has worked on at least one title that sold 10+ million copies - it's a pretty good place to work all things considered. No, the main and only problem is pay, and it all stems from the fact that there are hundreds of applicants willing to apply for junior positions, some of which I am certain would literally chop their own leg off for the opportunity to work in video games - if it was legal they would literally agree to work for free. So they all start on some extremely low salary(especially considering that actually, our standard for hiring programmers seems extremely high and I have no doubts that those people could find much better paid jobs elsewhere), but obviously that leads to problems further down the line. But, just because we have thousands of applicants for junior positions, that doesn't mean we have as many for say Senior roles - those see barely anyone applying, and yes, I'm 100% convinced it's purely because of pay. And the pay is what it is, because HR considers it unacceptable to pay new hires more than what we pay people who have advanced through the ranks naturally(which obviously cannot be a lot, seeing as your starting salary as a junior was so low, even if you somehow through some miracle managed 10% increase every year that's still not a lot by the time you get promoted to senior).