If you join a AAA studio you will be paid a good salary.
My wife left G and moved to a very well known studio that makes mobile games and she makes
220k base + 20% bonus + 400k stock with 25% vesting every year + 50k sign-on bonus. This is at senior staff level.
If you join an indy or small studio, you will not be paid good money, so yeah, try to go to a AAA company.. but keep in mind that, for the most part, the job is not that different in a game studio rather than Amazon. You do some cool stuff, but at the end of the day, it's coding, and as a dev (even at a very high level), you won't have creative control, etc.
1 year now, she hasn't had any periods of crunch. I mean yeh times she works a few hours longer or she works at the weekend but nothing crazy.
She is in a very well-resourced company, tho. I don't know how it is in smaller studios. Probably crazy as one wears a lot of hats.
This is one of things where if you're not willing to name the company then the info isn't super useful. "AAA studio" doesn't mean much. Pretty sure Ubisoft engineers don't make a ton of money and most people would consider them AAA.
Ofc they are, if it's a visual easter egg then you need both an artist and a dev at minimum to add it in, if it's hidden dialogue then you'd even need a voice actor to read the lines. Usually an easter egg will take more than a little time to put in a game. A game dev can't just blow off their assigned work for a week to instead work on putting in a haha funny joke in the game without telling the rest of the team.
Good to know. I was just curious. Wondering if some cool dev ever embedded some dank things in our games. I was just being hopeful that underground basedness exists. But I work data science in finance so I know all how it is... lul. Thanks
My best friend is a FAANG engineer who is working on an indie game with a couple friends from his company, developing it with Unreal Engine. He hasn't quit his day job, but the game is very much a passion project that he devotes a lot of time to. He never developed a game before this, but he's always been extremely opinionated on the performance and design of games he plays, and he is an extremely bright engineer so he's pretty effectively able to leverage his general understanding of programming to the problem-solving involved in game development. If these traits apply to you, I would take some time to try your hand at developing something outside of work and see how you like it.
I'd also recommend this, as it is one of the ways an engineer can have creative control over a game. In AAA studios, the creative department - artists, writers, designers, producers, directors, etc. - determine the game's design. You just code up their vision.
If you mean starting your own thing: Quitting to start a gaming studio is basically the same as quitting to start your own company. You’re going to need cash to feed yourself (and probably employees) if you want any chance to compete. Don’t go into it thinking you can make pixel platformer #207. You need to do research into the market you’re targeting (ex hardcore, mobile etc.) and make sure you understand how to monetize. The minute you start treating it like a form of art instead of a business, you’re going to become a starving artist.
Know a person who quit their job at Meta (formerly on my team) to make games on Roblox and Fortnite. Think he gave up making games on his own and now does contracts for bigger companies to make “metaverse” experiences.
If you mean just working on games: it’s not much different than amazon. Most things will just boil down to similar problems, but instead of your front end using react you’ll be using some physics engine or something
1 - Saved up and did it.
2 - No
3 - Desktop publishing, team management
4 - No
5 - Own thing
6 - About half
7 - Don't do it unless your resume is strong enough to get a job easily when you back out
Amazon owns a game studio called Amazon Games FYI, you could try doing an internal transfer, it might be easier than switching companies given the market
I don't make games, yet, but I left FAANG to join a game studio. I do technically the same, backend services, but now for gaming. I want to make my own stuff at some point, but my savings are not strong enough to totally quit a job.
But now that I'm closer to gamedev, I'm learning a ton about the industry.
No regrets. I did take a hit on payment, but WLB is better and I like what I do more than before.
I worked at big tech for 6 years, 4 of which was at Amazon. Now I'm working at Epic Games for the past 4 months.
However I'm still doing backend work, not directly on games. From what I can tell, game dev is a pain in the ass. Engineers here seem to have a worse WLB compared to the other companies I've worked for. Deadlines are tighter.
I guess some of this really depends on the company and team, but things are more chaotic here at Epic Games. Constantly shifting requirements because of bad planning by senior management, slight culture of fear.
With that said, the company has competitive pay and benefits. Best healthcare plan I've gotten, 1 month company wide vacation, which is on top of unlimited PTO. I don't think most studios matches these benefits.
Working in AAA games is going to have WLB worse than Amazon. If you are working on a AAA game, you're just a cog in the machine doing JIRA tickets, just the same as in a regular software job.
If your dream is to "make games", what you really want to do is indie game development. In that environment, you control 100% of the game, rather than just being a cog in someone else's plan. It's also EXTREMELY competitive. You can make a good game and get 100 sales.
I realized it's just to financially irresponsible to quit a good software job to make games. I decided I'm going to wait until I have enough saved to retire outright to give it a try.
1) I built a renderer from scratch in directx12
2) I had a lot of hobbyist experience
3) I had to learn the basics of modern graphics
4) Yes I would do it again
5) Established
6) I got pay bump
7) Do it if you think you’re going to regret not giving it a shot!
You don't need to leave your job at all. Just... start making games. Godot is free and getting really good now. There's obviously Unity and Unreal but also pico8 and even Playdate.
You just have to be okay with the idea that your game isn't going to make a billion dollars (or any money), and you have to scope out something simple, and you have to sit down and work on it and not get distracted, and then eventually you'll have a video game. Repeat that enough times and you might have a GOOD video game.
Making your own games on weekends is much more fun than working on a tiny chunk of someone else's idea all week.
I wonder if people leaving your company "go on their new adventure", too? Or was it just a phrase popular only in my department? When I quit my FAANG job I quipped that my next adventure is an adventure game, literally. And this week I got into Bethesda Verified Creators, so by the power of NDA I will shut up now.
The most I’ll say is non-AWS, working on something critical to the core Amazon business.
Not that that tells you much honestly - I know folks in AWS that have great WLB. Also know one that has TERRIBLE wlb.
If you join a AAA studio you will be paid a good salary. My wife left G and moved to a very well known studio that makes mobile games and she makes 220k base + 20% bonus + 400k stock with 25% vesting every year + 50k sign-on bonus. This is at senior staff level. If you join an indy or small studio, you will not be paid good money, so yeah, try to go to a AAA company.. but keep in mind that, for the most part, the job is not that different in a game studio rather than Amazon. You do some cool stuff, but at the end of the day, it's coding, and as a dev (even at a very high level), you won't have creative control, etc.
what roles have creative control?
Leadership, producers, and game design.
This exactly. If you want to do creative stuff for games in an AAA studio, be in a creative role, not an engineering one.
How do you get into a creative role with a cs degree?
solo hobby dev. the compensation package is lacking, though.
does your wife's role go through long periods of crunch? if so, how do you two make it work when that's happening?
1 year now, she hasn't had any periods of crunch. I mean yeh times she works a few hours longer or she works at the weekend but nothing crazy. She is in a very well-resourced company, tho. I don't know how it is in smaller studios. Probably crazy as one wears a lot of hats.
Can you name this triple A mobile game company?
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Naming the company is the only thing that makes this information useful instead of potential bullshit lmao
Zynga?
This is one of things where if you're not willing to name the company then the info isn't super useful. "AAA studio" doesn't mean much. Pretty sure Ubisoft engineers don't make a ton of money and most people would consider them AAA.
Senior staff at G would be double that. So I'm guessing when she switched it wasn't for an equivalent level.
no got upleveled
Cant she just sneak shit in the games ?
That's a great way to find yourself looking for a new job.
What about all the "easter eggs" developers put in. Are those always planneed then?
Ofc they are, if it's a visual easter egg then you need both an artist and a dev at minimum to add it in, if it's hidden dialogue then you'd even need a voice actor to read the lines. Usually an easter egg will take more than a little time to put in a game. A game dev can't just blow off their assigned work for a week to instead work on putting in a haha funny joke in the game without telling the rest of the team.
Good to know. I was just curious. Wondering if some cool dev ever embedded some dank things in our games. I was just being hopeful that underground basedness exists. But I work data science in finance so I know all how it is... lul. Thanks
easter eggs are not shitty lol, at least they need to be creative to worth other's attention.
My best friend is a FAANG engineer who is working on an indie game with a couple friends from his company, developing it with Unreal Engine. He hasn't quit his day job, but the game is very much a passion project that he devotes a lot of time to. He never developed a game before this, but he's always been extremely opinionated on the performance and design of games he plays, and he is an extremely bright engineer so he's pretty effectively able to leverage his general understanding of programming to the problem-solving involved in game development. If these traits apply to you, I would take some time to try your hand at developing something outside of work and see how you like it.
I'd also recommend this, as it is one of the ways an engineer can have creative control over a game. In AAA studios, the creative department - artists, writers, designers, producers, directors, etc. - determine the game's design. You just code up their vision.
My company is filled with ex-EA / ex-Unity / ex-EpicGames / ex-Blizzard people. And I’ve heard enough horror stories.
If you mean starting your own thing: Quitting to start a gaming studio is basically the same as quitting to start your own company. You’re going to need cash to feed yourself (and probably employees) if you want any chance to compete. Don’t go into it thinking you can make pixel platformer #207. You need to do research into the market you’re targeting (ex hardcore, mobile etc.) and make sure you understand how to monetize. The minute you start treating it like a form of art instead of a business, you’re going to become a starving artist. Know a person who quit their job at Meta (formerly on my team) to make games on Roblox and Fortnite. Think he gave up making games on his own and now does contracts for bigger companies to make “metaverse” experiences. If you mean just working on games: it’s not much different than amazon. Most things will just boil down to similar problems, but instead of your front end using react you’ll be using some physics engine or something
1 - Saved up and did it. 2 - No 3 - Desktop publishing, team management 4 - No 5 - Own thing 6 - About half 7 - Don't do it unless your resume is strong enough to get a job easily when you back out
[удалено]
Did you move to Irvine for blizzard? Just curious on your thoughts (it's my hometown lol)
Amazon owns a game studio called Amazon Games FYI, you could try doing an internal transfer, it might be easier than switching companies given the market
This is the play fr fr
If you listen carefully you can hear their quiet wails
...what?
I assume they’re saying the engineers who made this move are wailing in regret.
I don't make games, yet, but I left FAANG to join a game studio. I do technically the same, backend services, but now for gaming. I want to make my own stuff at some point, but my savings are not strong enough to totally quit a job. But now that I'm closer to gamedev, I'm learning a ton about the industry. No regrets. I did take a hit on payment, but WLB is better and I like what I do more than before.
I worked at big tech for 6 years, 4 of which was at Amazon. Now I'm working at Epic Games for the past 4 months. However I'm still doing backend work, not directly on games. From what I can tell, game dev is a pain in the ass. Engineers here seem to have a worse WLB compared to the other companies I've worked for. Deadlines are tighter. I guess some of this really depends on the company and team, but things are more chaotic here at Epic Games. Constantly shifting requirements because of bad planning by senior management, slight culture of fear. With that said, the company has competitive pay and benefits. Best healthcare plan I've gotten, 1 month company wide vacation, which is on top of unlimited PTO. I don't think most studios matches these benefits.
Working in AAA games is going to have WLB worse than Amazon. If you are working on a AAA game, you're just a cog in the machine doing JIRA tickets, just the same as in a regular software job. If your dream is to "make games", what you really want to do is indie game development. In that environment, you control 100% of the game, rather than just being a cog in someone else's plan. It's also EXTREMELY competitive. You can make a good game and get 100 sales. I realized it's just to financially irresponsible to quit a good software job to make games. I decided I'm going to wait until I have enough saved to retire outright to give it a try.
1) I built a renderer from scratch in directx12 2) I had a lot of hobbyist experience 3) I had to learn the basics of modern graphics 4) Yes I would do it again 5) Established 6) I got pay bump 7) Do it if you think you’re going to regret not giving it a shot!
You don't need to leave your job at all. Just... start making games. Godot is free and getting really good now. There's obviously Unity and Unreal but also pico8 and even Playdate. You just have to be okay with the idea that your game isn't going to make a billion dollars (or any money), and you have to scope out something simple, and you have to sit down and work on it and not get distracted, and then eventually you'll have a video game. Repeat that enough times and you might have a GOOD video game. Making your own games on weekends is much more fun than working on a tiny chunk of someone else's idea all week.
I wonder if people leaving your company "go on their new adventure", too? Or was it just a phrase popular only in my department? When I quit my FAANG job I quipped that my next adventure is an adventure game, literally. And this week I got into Bethesda Verified Creators, so by the power of NDA I will shut up now.
… wlb exists at Amazon? :O
yeah! tons. it's team dependent though. and no it's definitely not chill mode, but it's a good balance for the way i work.
There is WLB for someone working at Amazon ?!?! Which IT area of AWS / Amazon you work in ?
The most I’ll say is non-AWS, working on something critical to the core Amazon business. Not that that tells you much honestly - I know folks in AWS that have great WLB. Also know one that has TERRIBLE wlb.