Peak’s Post

I often get calls from parents telling me that they’re worried their college student made a mistake getting a Game Design & Development degree. They’re worried that they won’t be able to get a job with that degree. The bad news is that it is very difficult to get a job in the video game industry (as noted in the article below).  This is due to a combination of a shrinking industry and an oversupply of available candidates. The good news is that GDD has many transferable skills that make these graduates attractive to employers.  Skills like coding, debugging, project management, and knowledge of multiple coding languages are very in demand by multiple employers across multiple industries. When looking for a job, instead of having your student presenting themselves as a particular degree, have them lead with their skill sets and accomplishments.  At the end of the day, employers are looking to hire for skills, not for specific degrees. https://lnkd.in/gPKk3Vvw

Thousands of Game devs have been jobless for over 6 months now. Layoffs have had a significant impact on their lives. To help the impacted individuals, we launched a 100% game dev scholarship that can help you become a more desirable applicant. We’re accepting applications for the next cohort here: https://lnkd.in/gqrWDAFA Adding programming as a skill set can bring your ideas to life. The idea is not to transition into programming as a career but to become more desirable because you can talk to programmers in the lingo they understand. Basic programming-level skills can help: - Designers turn their GDD into a tangible PoC. - Artists bring concept art to life in prototypes, bridging the gap between visuals and gameplay. - Turn project plans into interactive prototypes. Drop your thoughts in the comment section. *** #scholarship #games #jobs #careers #gameprogramming #QA #gamedesign #gameart

The biggest mistake I've ever made as a software engineer was not being open and public when I'm in the lab building and creating. Excuse #1: It's not my forte Excuse #2: It's hard to build and promote But regardless I've been working on this too long and hard to not share. Let the 4 day countdown to announce KITT LABS Interactive hiring experience event "The Career Games" BEGIN!! Problem: Companies come to #Atlanta to find #Talent. Spend months #recruiting only to make miss hires. Solution: A Career Combine, an olympic style hiring event that will act as a benchmark for evaluating hard and soft skills. Though individual technical interviews, a team hackathon and bug bash competition. The first category? #software #engineers I'll see you tomorrow again for more details. https://lu.ma/0qq1yefu

Hiring engineers should be a Hunger Games event: 1. Have your best 20 candidates work on an internal project. 2. Let them collaborate with your existing teammates, solving real problems. 3. Have your people score them based on how well they fit. 4. Create a leaderboard to rank the candidates based on their contributions and teamwork. 5. Introduce unexpected challenges or bugs to test their adaptability and problem-solving skills. 6. Observe their communication and leadership qualities in real time. 7. At the end of the project, gather feedback from both the candidates and your team. 8. Make your final selection not just on technical skills, but on how they blend with your company culture. 9. Provide constructive feedback to those not selected, fostering goodwill and potential future opportunities. 10. Celebrate the new hires with a grand welcome, integrating them into the team as victorious tributes of your engineering Hunger Games.

Video Game Industry Layoffs: How Programmers are Affected Explore the challenges facing the video game industry, including significant layoffs for programmers and developers. This video discusses the current state of the industry and how you can make an impact through volunteerism and community support for game enthusiasts. #VideoGameIndustry #Programming #GameDevelopers #Layoffs #SupportGamers #VolunteerWork #GamingCommunity #TechTalk #GameDev #IndustryInsights

Not mentioned in this post, but you could also not ask for a better manager and advocate than Emily!

A heartfelt reflection on career aspirations and resilience: Recently, I applied for what I considered my dream job at Panda Game Manufacturing. As someone deeply involved in board games for nearly a decade, this opportunity felt like the perfect fit. I poured my heart into the application, tailoring my resume and cover letter. After anxiously waiting through GenCon, the answer came: a no. Initially, this rejection stung. I thought I'd found my ideal workplace, and not being considered made me question if there would ever be a "perfect" position for me. But this experience taught me something valuable: 1. It reaffirmed my passion for the tabletop industry. 2. It showed me the clear direction I want for my career. 3. It reignited my drive after a period of uncertainty. To Panda Game Manufacturing: Thank you. This single job posting, despite the outcome, provided clarity and motivation. Onwards and upwards. The journey continues, and I'm more determined than ever to contribute to the industry I love. #CareerGrowth #BoardGames #TabletopIndustry #Resilience #ProfessionalDevelopment

Ok, back from my LI break. I popped in here and there to check in, but stayed out as much as I could. Not much really changed. This month marks my 1 year of job searching. I know I mentioned I was at 1 year a few times, but taking a look at when my first job application was (Jan 27), its now official. Don't worry, no complaining in this post. Except my nut allergy. Curse that thing. Instead, I wanted to take the time to properly thank a few people who've helped me over the course of the journey. Amanda R. was the first recruiter I ever really talked to. Met her at GDC2023, talked briefly during the final day, but she did a really good job at explaining the open roles and the recruiting process at Bungie. Even though I didn't get the position, I'm still thankful for all the help she and the recruitment team at the time gave during an already extremely stressful time. Steve deAngeli and Jordan Kegler both helped a lot with when I was applying to Rockstar Games as a graphics engineer. I met Jordan during my time at WPI when he was still a part of Snoozy Kazoo (you may remember them as the devs of Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion), and he connected me to Steve, who helped me along the interview process. Emanuel Masciarelli has been helping me as a part of Amir Satvat's (shoutout to him too :) mentorship program, from project direction and what parts of programming I should be focusing on honing my skills in. ATX Game Makers for putting on events that are an absolute blast and give me motivation to keep going in a really rough time, and Adam Creighton for alerting me to them when I was first moving to Austin. There's many more names, but I just wanted to put the ones above for some of the folks who've made the most impact. Huge TY to everyone, I literally could not have gone as far as I did without you all. Fingers crossed things improve soon, not just in games, but everywhere else - at least enough to stand on my feet and work to make things better. New song coming out tomorrow, if you're at all interested, and I've got a few blog posts planned for stuff game dev and music related. #gamedev #codingjourney #jobsearching

Hiring through hackathons is kind of the best practice