I've worked in the Games industry since 1997. I got my first year-long job fresh out of high school in QA at EA in Canada, worked summers over the following ye

I've worked in the Games industry since 1997. I got my first year-long job fresh out of high school in QA at EA in Canada, worked summers over the following years while getting my degrees, transitioned to a programming role after university, and ultimately moved to the US in 2013 for work in games at one of the big tech companies. 1997-2003 - QA @ EA, ~$9-12 an hour (CAD), 1.5x for hours 40-48, 2x > 48 hours. We worked a lot of 90 hour weeks, and I had no life outside of work, so I had a lot of spare cash. 2003-2008 - Game Dev in Eastern Canada. Started at 40k a year, ended at 62k a year (CAD). 2008-2013 - Game Dev in Western Canada, started at 80k a year, ended at 100k per year (CAD). Got promoted to "senior" in 2010 and managed a team of 6 programmers during my last year and a half prior to leaving. 2013-present - Moved to the United States at a big tech company that does games. Took a role-demotion to be a non-senior IC for a wage-promotion of 135k a year USD. Presently have a similar role to the one I left in Canada (albeit a much larger team) and make >350k USD a year.