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Ok well let me tell you, that was a huge break to get that job with the game. Not that I dont think there is transferable skills in it, I agree with you there,

Ok well let me tell you, that was a huge break to get that job with the game. Not that I dont think there is transferable skills in it, I agree with you there, but still not many people these days will take you seriously if you add your game to your portfolio. I naively used to think so, but noone emails me back when I do that. Goes double for any kind of music making program or tool. I can only assume my applications go straight to the trash when I do that. Never a peep!

999900000999 5y ago
I have an amazing career and my games are on my portfolio. A mobile app , even if it's a game, is still a mobile app. What does the rest of your resume look like, did you finish college? I got to 6 figures sans degree, but college might help
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  I have a masters in philosophy, graduated with distinction and have top GPA for both runs, but I actually get more responses not mentioning any of that. These days, as I have been told, getting an email back is less merit based than it is playing the right game for the initial algorithmic screening. Once you get through that though and do interviews, your merits become a lot more important, but the initial step is huge. It has taken me years to get to the point where I get an email back like... 1% of the time. Its a big black box, but you have all the room to experiment with it! I am really happy for your success though!
  - dbingham 5y ago
    This seems strange to me. The market for engineers is really, really competitive right now. I know we're struggling for applicants - to the point where we've started reaching out to people rather than expecting people to come to us. We're certainly not going to immediately pass on someone who applies with solid experience, especially if they have multiple personal projects that demonstrate skill. It makes me wonder if there's something else going on here. Are you applying to positions that aren't a good fit for your experience or skills? Like only applying to senior positions when you've only had a few years in the industry or only applying to positions in languages you've never worked in (but want to) ? I really struggle to believe that sharing code from personal game projects or music tools would hurt (rather than help) your application. (Unless, as mentioned in my other comment, you really cut corners in those personal projects.) Edit: I see, reading your other comments I see you mention that you're in a receptionist job right now and I think that resolves my confusion. If you don't have any actual work experience, yeah, getting that first job can still be really hard. Everyone wants senior engineers, no one wants to hire juniors. Which fucking sucks, because we have to hire juniors for their to be seniors. But, again, putting good code you've written - even games and music tools - should help not hurt you. So I would examine the code you've written for those tools and make sure it is good, solid code. If not, take some time to clean it up and then try again. (If you can find that time.)
    - beepbooptheory 5y ago
      Ok well thank you that makes me feel better. I am constantly coding and making things, I think I am getting better (I am halfway through SICP!), so there is always something new to try out in the resume. But yes, as far as any initial screening goes, I am pretty disadvantaged because I have nothing on paper but my repos.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > The market for engineers is really, really competitive right now. I know we're struggling for applicants > Are you applying to positions that aren't a good fit for your experience or skills? I just applied to Google. Specifically, I applied for their lowest-level position, L3. I "passed" the algorithmic interviews and was told to expect a round of lower-pressure "team fit" interviews the following week. Instead, after multiple weeks of zero interviews, they let me know they were rejecting me instead. So I somehow managed to fail a round of interviews I wasn't even given. This is what a competitive hiring market looks like?
      - 999900000999 5y ago
        Most of us will never work in FAANG. Getting an interview with a normal company is pretty easy though
        thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > Most of us will never work in FAANG. What's the relevance? Most people won't work there, so the hiring market is competitive? Isn't competitive? If you meant to talk about me personally, that statement already doesn't apply to me.
        popcube 5y ago
        this mean that is just too difficult for most of people
  - andrewzah 5y ago
    It took some time for me to find a job after I graduated as well. I didn’t have any experience, but also I wasn’t networking correctly. I landed my first part time gigs from a software meetup, and then got a full-time job from networking at a computing conference. I wouldn’t waste any time at all on emails or recruiters.
dbingham 5y ago
Yeah, similar to other responses to you, I got into the industry in no small part due to building a game. I also built a recipe website to learn web development (which is pretty low hanging fruit). It may have more to do with the quality of your code. I'm now in a hiring position (Director of DevOps), and I can tell you, seeing a game in a Github wouldn't turn me off at all, it would intrigue me. But I would also take a hard look at the code. Is it quality? Is it well written, well organized, good naming, good clear commenting, well documented? A lot of people let quality slip on their personal projects - and then if you share that, that makes a bad first impression.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  Yeah this is probably a good point, and possibly what is happening. I just never really have gotten any feedback about it, so I can't know. I am proud of what I have done, and happy I have learned so much doing it. And I should also say I have for the most part given up ever getting a computer job, I do a couple of hail marys here and there, but mostly these days just focus on the niche highly undesired things I actually love (like elisp and supercollider), instead of forcing myself to enjoy react or svelte or whatever. It has made me quite happy to give up, I just like to learn and make art, I can be happy as a lowly receptionist if I can keep doing that. :)
mbrodersen 5y ago
Not true. I was picked more than once out of a competitive pool of talented people because of my game development experience. It made me unique and stand out from the crowd.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  That is really awesome! congrats

999900000999 5y ago

I have an amazing career and my games are on my portfolio. A mobile app , even if it's a game, is still a mobile app. What does the rest of your resume look like, did you finish college? I got to 6 figures sans degree, but college might help

beepbooptheory 5y ago
I have a masters in philosophy, graduated with distinction and have top GPA for both runs, but I actually get more responses not mentioning any of that. These days, as I have been told, getting an email back is less merit based than it is playing the right game for the initial algorithmic screening. Once you get through that though and do interviews, your merits become a lot more important, but the initial step is huge. It has taken me years to get to the point where I get an email back like... 1% of the time. Its a big black box, but you have all the room to experiment with it! I am really happy for your success though!
- dbingham 5y ago
  This seems strange to me. The market for engineers is really, really competitive right now. I know we're struggling for applicants - to the point where we've started reaching out to people rather than expecting people to come to us. We're certainly not going to immediately pass on someone who applies with solid experience, especially if they have multiple personal projects that demonstrate skill. It makes me wonder if there's something else going on here. Are you applying to positions that aren't a good fit for your experience or skills? Like only applying to senior positions when you've only had a few years in the industry or only applying to positions in languages you've never worked in (but want to) ? I really struggle to believe that sharing code from personal game projects or music tools would hurt (rather than help) your application. (Unless, as mentioned in my other comment, you really cut corners in those personal projects.) Edit: I see, reading your other comments I see you mention that you're in a receptionist job right now and I think that resolves my confusion. If you don't have any actual work experience, yeah, getting that first job can still be really hard. Everyone wants senior engineers, no one wants to hire juniors. Which fucking sucks, because we have to hire juniors for their to be seniors. But, again, putting good code you've written - even games and music tools - should help not hurt you. So I would examine the code you've written for those tools and make sure it is good, solid code. If not, take some time to clean it up and then try again. (If you can find that time.)
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    Ok well thank you that makes me feel better. I am constantly coding and making things, I think I am getting better (I am halfway through SICP!), so there is always something new to try out in the resume. But yes, as far as any initial screening goes, I am pretty disadvantaged because I have nothing on paper but my repos.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > The market for engineers is really, really competitive right now. I know we're struggling for applicants > Are you applying to positions that aren't a good fit for your experience or skills? I just applied to Google. Specifically, I applied for their lowest-level position, L3. I "passed" the algorithmic interviews and was told to expect a round of lower-pressure "team fit" interviews the following week. Instead, after multiple weeks of zero interviews, they let me know they were rejecting me instead. So I somehow managed to fail a round of interviews I wasn't even given. This is what a competitive hiring market looks like?
    - 999900000999 5y ago
      Most of us will never work in FAANG. Getting an interview with a normal company is pretty easy though
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > Most of us will never work in FAANG. What's the relevance? Most people won't work there, so the hiring market is competitive? Isn't competitive? If you meant to talk about me personally, that statement already doesn't apply to me.
        popcube 5y ago
        this mean that is just too difficult for most of people
- andrewzah 5y ago
  It took some time for me to find a job after I graduated as well. I didn’t have any experience, but also I wasn’t networking correctly. I landed my first part time gigs from a software meetup, and then got a full-time job from networking at a computing conference. I wouldn’t waste any time at all on emails or recruiters.

dbingham 5y ago

Yeah, similar to other responses to you, I got into the industry in no small part due to building a game. I also built a recipe website to learn web development (which is pretty low hanging fruit). It may have more to do with the quality of your code. I'm now in a hiring position (Director of DevOps), and I can tell you, seeing a game in a Github wouldn't turn me off at all, it would intrigue me. But I would also take a hard look at the code. Is it quality? Is it well written, well organized, good naming, good clear commenting, well documented? A lot of people let quality slip on their personal projects - and then if you share that, that makes a bad first impression.

beepbooptheory 5y ago
Yeah this is probably a good point, and possibly what is happening. I just never really have gotten any feedback about it, so I can't know. I am proud of what I have done, and happy I have learned so much doing it. And I should also say I have for the most part given up ever getting a computer job, I do a couple of hail marys here and there, but mostly these days just focus on the niche highly undesired things I actually love (like elisp and supercollider), instead of forcing myself to enjoy react or svelte or whatever. It has made me quite happy to give up, I just like to learn and make art, I can be happy as a lowly receptionist if I can keep doing that. :)

mbrodersen 5y ago

Not true. I was picked more than once out of a competitive pool of talented people because of my game development experience. It made me unique and stand out from the crowd.

beepbooptheory 5y ago
That is really awesome! congrats