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I completely agree. My game dev past in Massively Multiplayer Online Games directly led to work at FANG in cloud engineering. Work on optimizations, storage, co

I completely agree. My game dev past in Massively Multiplayer Online Games directly led to work at FANG in cloud engineering. Work on optimizations, storage, comms speed, and stateless flows led to large improvements in product performance. All of that emerged from running into roadblocks on games engines. Even rendering was useful in understanding how to get better performance and frame-rate on client applications -- engineers don't typically think in terms of frames-per-second when writing UI code. My experience in cache optimization for game objects directly applied when used to speed up trading platform transaction speeds. Experience with threading was also given and not common in normal engineering (at least at the time). I actually think it's the opposite. Nearly every aspect of game development is challenging and transferrable. I can't speak entirely for people who did more of their work in Unity (I was in the 'build it from scratch' generation) but I suspect any high-performance game requires an equivalent level of getting deep down into the code and having a critical understanding of your structures, algorithms, and how your computer primitives fundamentally work and interact. That alone will usually put you into the upper tier of applicants to any tech company. Your resume, if written correctly, should easily highlight all of this.

lfowles 5y ago
> but I suspect any high-performance game requires an equivalent level of getting deep down into the code and having a critical understanding of your structures, algorithms, and how your computer primitives fundamentally work and interact. I don't think most indie devs developing games are making "high-performance games". Rather they're spending most of their time in the "business logic" of the game, since most optimizations will have been handled by the engine (I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing either!). I definitely feel that I learned more about data structures, algorithms, and performance optimization outside of the game dev world than in it.
oumua_don17 5y ago
And I too completely agree. I agree that I had a head start with learning graphics programming in C in 1996 and have since contributed to developing game engines, games using those engines and most recently (3-4 years back) prototyping the integration of ML models into gameplay. Try doing that with acceptable frame rates and it's a tiring but fun challenge if you like such stuff. I have swapped between writing games/tools/libraries and working at FAANG the past 7 years and I can say that I get to work as Research Engineer at FAANG's only because of the prior game programming experience. Like anything else, it's not for everybody but game development is very interesting and IMHO cheap way that is at the intersection of some math/physics/performance/complex logic all in 1. This graphics deep dive also gave me opportunities to work in 3D scientific visualisation, augmented reality etc. The only problem with game development is learning it from scratch/ground up while worthwhile is a long, arduous route; early starters have an advantage and now with game engines like Unity you may not have to poke under the hood but without that poking you cannot master the graphics tech stack. But then we can say that about mastering any subject!!!
user123456780 5y ago
> Nearly every aspect of game development is challenging and transferrable I think thats if you dive into engine development alongside game development. What I have found is a lot of newer game developers don't know the fundamentals because unity just takes care of it. Instead of spending time learning about data structures and the complexity of building a large interconnected codebase they memorise the unity api and learn how to make 'free floating' scripts that don't have to solve the hard problems. I used to prioritise game developers when hiring for my corporate job. But I am finding this is less of marker of a good developer. Game development is still hard because it requires a huge amount of knowledge across many disciplines. Games programming has become significantly easier since the rise of unity and unreal.
weq 5y ago
All you need todo is memoize l33tcode to get into FAANG. b4 that, graduate from a respected uni and u would have a recruiter at your email door setting up a phone interview looking to shape you into a good little employee. Game programming is hard. its depressing to read because its true for most. This article resonated with my 13yr old self (when i was making q-basic games). Working in the enterprise is cushy if u want heaps of money just do it in Defence and get access to all the awesome tech 10 years b4 Oculus. Your job as a game programmer readied u for a career at large corperations. Great! Thats not the norm! The norm is a toxic boys club of chaddery. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/women-pry-open-door-video-game-industrys-boys-club-flna1b7956770 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/women-pry-open-door-v... That said, its pretty stupid to think your skills are not tranferable. But also there are new breeds of programmers these days who companies are happy to employ who really offer nothing more then API knowledge.

lfowles 5y ago

> but I suspect any high-performance game requires an equivalent level of getting deep down into the code and having a critical understanding of your structures, algorithms, and how your computer primitives fundamentally work and interact. I don't think most indie devs developing games are making "high-performance games". Rather they're spending most of their time in the "business logic" of the game, since most optimizations will have been handled by the engine (I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing either!). I definitely feel that I learned more about data structures, algorithms, and performance optimization outside of the game dev world than in it.

oumua_don17 5y ago

And I too completely agree. I agree that I had a head start with learning graphics programming in C in 1996 and have since contributed to developing game engines, games using those engines and most recently (3-4 years back) prototyping the integration of ML models into gameplay. Try doing that with acceptable frame rates and it's a tiring but fun challenge if you like such stuff. I have swapped between writing games/tools/libraries and working at FAANG the past 7 years and I can say that I get to work as Research Engineer at FAANG's only because of the prior game programming experience. Like anything else, it's not for everybody but game development is very interesting and IMHO cheap way that is at the intersection of some math/physics/performance/complex logic all in 1. This graphics deep dive also gave me opportunities to work in 3D scientific visualisation, augmented reality etc. The only problem with game development is learning it from scratch/ground up while worthwhile is a long, arduous route; early starters have an advantage and now with game engines like Unity you may not have to poke under the hood but without that poking you cannot master the graphics tech stack. But then we can say that about mastering any subject!!!

user123456780 5y ago

> Nearly every aspect of game development is challenging and transferrable I think thats if you dive into engine development alongside game development. What I have found is a lot of newer game developers don't know the fundamentals because unity just takes care of it. Instead of spending time learning about data structures and the complexity of building a large interconnected codebase they memorise the unity api and learn how to make 'free floating' scripts that don't have to solve the hard problems. I used to prioritise game developers when hiring for my corporate job. But I am finding this is less of marker of a good developer. Game development is still hard because it requires a huge amount of knowledge across many disciplines. Games programming has become significantly easier since the rise of unity and unreal.

weq 5y ago

All you need todo is memoize l33tcode to get into FAANG. b4 that, graduate from a respected uni and u would have a recruiter at your email door setting up a phone interview looking to shape you into a good little employee. Game programming is hard. its depressing to read because its true for most. This article resonated with my 13yr old self (when i was making q-basic games). Working in the enterprise is cushy if u want heaps of money just do it in Defence and get access to all the awesome tech 10 years b4 Oculus. Your job as a game programmer readied u for a career at large corperations. Great! Thats not the norm! The norm is a toxic boys club of chaddery. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/women-pry-open-door-video-game-industrys-boys-club-flna1b7956770 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/women-pry-open-door-v... That said, its pretty stupid to think your skills are not tranferable. But also there are new breeds of programmers these days who companies are happy to employ who really offer nothing more then API knowledge.