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Hiring all your devs from testers? Generally dev requires a comp sci background, tester doesn’t. I won’t claim every developer needs a 4 year comp sci degree,

Hiring all your devs from testers? Generally dev requires a comp sci background, tester doesn’t. I won’t claim every developer needs a 4 year comp sci degree, but I would be worried on a project with 0 degree holders. At some point someone has to like pick a data structure or interface with like hardware.

Ekaros 5y ago
We are far past self-learned experts in the field. Ofc, there is always a handful, but for making big commercial comp. sci. intensive product I would prefer graduates myself. Let's not forget Epic's main product is an game engine. Which is in upper echelons of product complexity. Not that there isn't lot of work to run store and related services also at Epic Games.
monksy 5y ago
Having worked with a few people that went from testing->upgraded to dev.. there are some large gaps in software composition, design, and stances. It's not imposible to go from testing to dev.. but it really depends on the person's effort into doing so.
jimbob45 5y ago
Most testers at the companies I’ve been at have had dormant CS degrees. They don’t bother keeping their CS skills up because there’s no chance for them to be promoted. Nevertheless, they often know the product extremely well and work hard. If there was a known pipeline for them to follow, I’m certain they’d follow it.
- gkop 5y ago
  Your story doesn’t add up. Since a CS degree isn’t a pre-requisite to be a tester, and a CS degree goes a good way toward qualifying for a better paid software development job, why are your companies predominantly hiring testers with CS degrees? Why did the testers get the degrees just to let them go “dormant”?
  - yoyonamite 5y ago
    I've never been involved in the game industry but it sounds believable to me. It's not a given that having a CS degree means a person can code, which is one of the reasons we code test in interviews. And I imagine the game industry requires higher coding ability. There are also people that want to be in the game industry no matter what. They would rather be a tester in games than a programmer outside it.
tjpnz 5y ago
I've got a family member who's worked in the industry and now runs a studio. If I started talking to him about self balancing trees or algorithms for handling hash collisions he would look at me funny. Hasn't stopped him from shipping big budget titles. Despite having a CS degree I would likely struggle (a lot!) doing the kind of work he does. His background is in modding, 3D modeling packages and scripting which is rather typical in the industry.

Ekaros 5y ago

We are far past self-learned experts in the field. Ofc, there is always a handful, but for making big commercial comp. sci. intensive product I would prefer graduates myself. Let's not forget Epic's main product is an game engine. Which is in upper echelons of product complexity. Not that there isn't lot of work to run store and related services also at Epic Games.

monksy 5y ago

Having worked with a few people that went from testing->upgraded to dev.. there are some large gaps in software composition, design, and stances. It's not imposible to go from testing to dev.. but it really depends on the person's effort into doing so.

jimbob45 5y ago

Most testers at the companies I’ve been at have had dormant CS degrees. They don’t bother keeping their CS skills up because there’s no chance for them to be promoted. Nevertheless, they often know the product extremely well and work hard. If there was a known pipeline for them to follow, I’m certain they’d follow it.

gkop 5y ago
Your story doesn’t add up. Since a CS degree isn’t a pre-requisite to be a tester, and a CS degree goes a good way toward qualifying for a better paid software development job, why are your companies predominantly hiring testers with CS degrees? Why did the testers get the degrees just to let them go “dormant”?
- yoyonamite 5y ago
  I've never been involved in the game industry but it sounds believable to me. It's not a given that having a CS degree means a person can code, which is one of the reasons we code test in interviews. And I imagine the game industry requires higher coding ability. There are also people that want to be in the game industry no matter what. They would rather be a tester in games than a programmer outside it.

tjpnz 5y ago

I've got a family member who's worked in the industry and now runs a studio. If I started talking to him about self balancing trees or algorithms for handling hash collisions he would look at me funny. Hasn't stopped him from shipping big budget titles. Despite having a CS degree I would likely struggle (a lot!) doing the kind of work he does. His background is in modding, 3D modeling packages and scripting which is rather typical in the industry.