As a gamer working in software development, but not game development, I find your videos very interesting. I've been wanting to transition into the games industry, but I'm not really sure where to start educating myself. (I currently maintain an SQL DB code tree)
I'd recommend picking up a low-level language like C or C++ if you haven't already. There are some new players like Rust, but the industry is still largely dominated by older languages, and most of them are very similar to C anyway. I recommend The Cherno's channel, he's a programmer who's worked at EA for years and has some great videos and playlist tutorials specifically about game programming. After that, figure out whether you want to join a company or do your own thing. That's all you, I can't really advise one way or the other, because they each have their own challenges. Once you figure that out, you can start to narrow your studies to what will help you on that path.
Tim had an earlier video about starting in the industry. His top advice was to make a game. Make _something_ that you can attach to a resume or bring with you to show that you're doing the work. It doesn't have to be the best game ever made, but it has to show your strengths while also show that you understand on some level about game development. And I think that advice is still relevant to the quickly changing landscape in the industry today.
There are non game development software engineer roles at game companies. Stuff like working on their internal tooling (not game engine), web development, etc. Maybe start looking there? I'm not sure, I'm not in the games industry either.
I have had some experience in this world as a junior and staff before I decided to go all-in indie. It's funny because when I was young people told me life was tough, and that working is hard. And when I got into the industry I was surprised to find out the reality was the other way around. There was a lot of "baby-sitting" with juniors. My coworkers, not only low level but also seniors were very unproductive. I often found myself in one of these 3 situations: - not knowing what to do because other people haven't decided what has to be done, - finishing work early and having to do nothing, waiting for others, - trying to optimize my already optimized code, because I had nothing else to do. I guess it's important to note that I have also had some experience before coding for non-gaming startup companies, so I was used to high pressure work environment and that tinted how I viewed this experience. This game job was like playing an incredibly easy game on Very Easy mode and I was used to play hardcore games on max difficulty. That is why I left the job, frankly I was bored to death, and I saw all potential I had and was being wasted there. And that is the story of how I decided to go all-in indie! Still working on my first commercial game now, burning through my savings! lol! But it's going great, living that dream 16 hours/day of programming life style 😎. Maybe the lesson here is: people is really not the same.
@Badguy292 You are 100% right, I will start doing that soon. Waiting to the game get to a state I'm proud to "reveal" it. Then I plan to do trailers and devlogs going forward. For now I'm using this account just to chat. 😉
Super useful rundown, thanks! I rarely see this info explained outside of once you already have the job. Also when talking about the lead role you defaulted to "he". Probably because you were remembering someone specifically, but couldn't hurt to say "they" and give the ladies a chance!
Great video Tim. Would love to see you walk through the organization of a studio even more, if possible. Hitting the other departments, etc. Maybe you could walk everyone through a credits list of Outer Worlds or another game you’ve worked on!?
This is the best UA-cam channel I have ever found :D My uncle who is in game development couldn't tell me all this unfortunately because henis my inspiration
Hey Tim, loving your videos! I had a question i'd love to get your thoughts on. As someone who is in the hiring process for a well renowned studio, but has limited experience in the video game development industry, I'm curious to hear what you value the most in new hires, what you'd like new hires to know from the outset, and what your expectations for newbies to the industry are in terms of their capacity to learn quickly and adapt to different studio cultures. If you've got any stories as well as tips, please feel free to include them! Thanks for uploading these videos. It's incredibly informative, entertaining, and quite grounding to be able to get a glimpse into your thought process. Great work!
Happy 26 th Birthday of The Fallout 1 !! Thank you sir and the one who worked with you for this greatest game all the time . I wish you have a great life to you and to your family
Regarding people not wanting to be lead/managers and opting for principal and such instead I think office politics have become even less fun and more difficult over the last couple decades AND being a manager no longer has as much status/appeal in general particularly since roles like principal are now possible. Speaking from experience as someone who is good at software (people) management but hates doing it. Another alternative to principal is software architect roles, which is a related but separate skill set. Principal, lead and even senior devs are often expected to do some architecture as part of their responsibilities but I've noticed that being very good at coding or architecture does not means one is also good at the other.
We've seen a lot of newly-minted programmers without any soft-skills, so I suspect that their management potential is stymied based on that. Office politics and administrative BS has always been a drag for mgmt roles, but the trade-off was more salary, flexibility, and ideally, the power to create change (hopefully for the better). As orgs get larger and more rigid, with power concentrated very high up, middle-management doesn't have the allure it once had, particularly when even lead/senior roles can command quite lucrative salaries and flexibility. Changing attitudes toward work-life balance and the always-on nature of mgmt may also play a part.
Has someone who has been both lead and principal programmer, my opinion is that dealing with people is hard and compensation does not reflect the amount if shit you get as a manager. As a technical expert you get to be mr wiseman that everyone consult when they have an issue covered by your domain.
True, personally I prefer "lead by example" leaders instead of managers who don't do much actual work. Internally it might also be the source of managers being insecure and less people want to go down that route. Also there are managers who are under the title of team lead as well, very confusing to juniors.
Also, a lot of managers don't seem to realize their role is to direct the overall workflow, not the lives of those supposedly in their "charge". That's among the many reasons why "bosses" are generally disliked by their supposed underlings along with a plethora of nonreasons. One has to be okay with being disliked, reason or no, to take on a lead role, but I've actually had a manager (in another industry) forbid me from ever engaging even in friendly conversation with a specific co-worker, for example, because he didn't want me (or anyone else) knowing what was actually going on in the workplace despite that the knowledge might have alleviated some of the pressure from "on high" both on him and everyone else to accomplish the physically impossible actually being demanded of us had it been shared with the company's regional manager and/or headquarters. (And the company wonders why it can't keep managers.) That's an extreme example, of course, and (of course) I ignored that directive because it literallly wasn't within the manager's province to tell me or any other employee who they can and cannot speak with. Delegating work responsibilities and holding people accountable for the work responsibilities they've been assigned is quite a different thing from telling people what they can and cannot do with their lives and too many business leaders are in the business of doing just that, high on the supposed power they wield. Well, no one has power over us we don't give them ourselves and managers might be more aware of the fact across the board.
@@lrinfi Because some managers see their roles as managing people and figuring out how to allocate resources. They don't want to go outside of that responsibility since why should they? That will cause huge problems if there is a communication gap between managers and developers. Not every developer / programmer can be a great communicator, if the manager refuses to think in other people's shoes even a tiny bit, that will be a hyper frustrating workplace to be in.
@@echoness_ "some managers see their roles as managing people" -- There is an article, if interested, on that very subject titled 'Is Human Resources Out of Date?' Was it ever in-date? Human beings are not "resources" to be managed. They're family -- members of a species. As Oren Lyons said of fish, "Fish are not 'resources'. They're family. Fish are our family." At least, in the indigenous tradition, they are. Most of the rest of us tend to think of them quite differently, much as "HR" tends to think of people.
@@lrinfi The people working in HR are also real person, they can have biases, personal agendas, a false sense of authority and ego even they don't speak out publicly, those can be reflected in their actions. I'm not saying all HRs are like that, but it's a situation that can happen. When that happens it will be very costly to pretty everybody within the company. I agree that the current HR system pretty much dehumanizes the candidates since the critieria of getting an interview is how much you can get your resume "perfectly" match the job responsibilities without considering that in workplace there are much more to it than just matching skills. Putting the responsibilities of recruiting the people you want to work with in an independent system that has nothing to do with your work doesn't make sense.
@@echoness_ Nope. It doesn't make sense and it makes even less sense to automate the hiring process to the degree it's been automated at this point. You can't go anywhere and fill out an application for employment anumore, for the most part. You have to apply online and do make sure you type in the right keywords (if you know them) in your application so that it will come up among the first results in the systems' search function. You're not going to get the person best suited for the position by looking them up in the sytem by keyword and inviting those whose applications appear in the top three results in for an interview, yet it happens all the time. It's the concept of humans as resources and this notion that everything can be automated that's become ingrained. Human Resource departments used to be called Personnel, which isn't all that much better given its origins, but at least human beings at the time were still more often viewed, thought of and treated more as persons. The change in language has given away the change in mindset and further removed us from reality. I don't even particularly like the term, "teams," myself. What are we? Playing football here? Rah, Rah, Sis Boom Bah? George Carlin's skit, Euphemisms, again comes to mind. Actually, it's coming to mind a lot these days.
Hi Tim! (Hope this is the right place to ask a question now): how did you guys come up with 'Arcanum'? Picking the right game titles are tough , like you explained for Fallout. But like Fallout, Arcanum just seems to perfect, I wonder what the process was to come up with it.
It's important to keep in mind that not all companies have a strict hierarchy, and from my observations in the last 10 years there was a significant shift towards horizontal teams. There is no authority and everyone brings some value to the end product in whatever areas they can, nobody assigns people anything, the teams decide by themselves what they want to work on, and so on. You can call it democratic. One of the important direct results from that approach, is it doesn't matter where a good idea comes from - anyone can suggest anything to anyone else, and thus the end product is of higher quality because people don't think in terms of "who I report to", "what is my area of responsibility", they don't get locked up into silos without understanding anything around, and so on. I don't know if this ever happens in gamedev, but for non-gamedev it happens all the time.
"from my observations in the last 10 years there was a significant shift towards horizontal teams" -- Indeed, there has been. Wonderful to see. It doesn't spell doom for "vertical" organization, but brings a balance to the workplace I've enjoyed only once: when I was working for a family trio of Armenians from Lebanon from whom I learned so much more than all my schooling, friends and family combined. That was the atmosphere; that was the environment; and, despite that we had our disagreements (and Dad fought with his sons quite a lot), it was the single, most enjoyable work experience of my life. Bless 'em. I felt as though I belonged there and had finally found home. Times, they are a-changin', but excessively large organizations, especially, are incredibly slow to change compared to the more human scale organizations because human scale organizations aren't as immovably set in their ways.
In my experience all such organizations produce worse results, take longer to achieve it and don't attract the best people. People who aren't very good, want to avoid responsibility or don't work very hard are attracted to such teams. This is an organization bred from political correctness and not technical reasons or a desire to produce better results. Yeah, some will not like me for saying that, but its the cold hard truth. And based off the example I heard Tim give about some task he estimated at 45 minutes being estimated by the team at 4 weeks - I'd bet he has similar experiences because such teams breed these types of inefficiencies and lack of responsibility.
@@Me__Myself__and__I > all such organizations [..] don't attract the best people. Strict hierarchy and areas of responsibility give you less freedom, not more. If someone is "best" as you say, how is not letting them contribute to the areas they've got good ideas for is better? There's a lot to unpack in your comment, but let's try with this one point here.
@@ethreix800 Because they still contribute wherever it makes sense. Having a hierarchy does not mean everyone has blinders on and no one listens. That does sometimes occur in bad teams/organizations but it has nothing to do with hierarchy. Hierarchy means that some individual is responsible for each of the important things. Which actuall6 makes it easier to meaningfully contribute because you know who to go talk to. Not having a hierarchy is like trying to heard cats, chaos. Also, just because someone likes/wants to do something does not mean they should. They may not actually be good at that thing or someone else may be a better choice. In a hierarchy its much more likely that the best person will be assigned to each task instead of the person who most wants to do it. Also, when their is no hierarchy people tend to slack off. Without hierarchy a person takes a task that sounds fun/interesting (instead of something they are experienced/good at) then they turn in an estimate that is way too much time. But since no one is in charge and no one has hrsponsibility for that thing they get away with wasting that time.
@@Me__Myself__and__I > Because they still contribute wherever it makes sense. No they don't, because most often they will be told it's not their responsibility, not their decision and they should bugger off. That's the baseline. > Having a hierarchy does not mean everyone has blinders on and no one listens. Realistically, most often that's what happens. And I'm telling you this as a silo hopper, someone who ignores the boundaries and talks to everyone outside of my "responsibilities range", and quite often people hate me for that, because I'm pointing out how they can do something better although they didn't ask me for it. And that's exactly why silo hoppers are a rare phenomenon, because people are afraid to "confront" someone else at work, afraid to go out of their boundaries for the betterment of the project. Most people are focused on making money and covering their ass and their ego, not making the product better. > Hierarchy means that some individual is responsible for each of the important things. Which actuall6 makes it easier to meaningfully contribute because you know who to go talk to. Not having a hierarchy is like trying to heard cats, chaos. Completely false. Imagine you and your friends go for a hike in the mountains. How do you decide who makes and maintains the campfire, who gathers and chops the wood, who sets the tents, who cooks, who brings water, etc? Shocking revelation: you do it by talking to each other and agreeing on things because that's why you came here, you all have the same goal in mind and you cooperate naturally. Same thing happens with horizontal teams: nobody is forcing you to do anything, you came here because you like your job, you like the product and you're excited to work some of its parts. And that naturally leads to devs specializing in some areas and naturally everyone else knows who's focusing on what and therefore who to talk to. > Also, just because someone likes/wants to do something does not mean they should. They may not actually be good at that thing or someone else may be a better choice. The team will find out soon enough and self-correct. Peer pressure is a powerful thing. > In a hierarchy its much more likely that the best person will be assigned to each task instead of the person who most wants to do it. You'll have to elaborate on this, because common sense says if 1 person (so-called leader) can identify who's good at what, pretty high chances are so could other people. Moreover, with multiple people being engaged in the feedback loop (saying who's good for what) there is less chance of making a bad judgement, that's how probability theory works (and that's, by the way, why direct democracy mathematically always wins over a power hierarchy). > Also, when their is no hierarchy people tend to slack off. People slack off regardless of hierarchy. But if the team depends on that person's work, there will be peer pressure. > they turn in an estimate that is way too much time Which is why poker planning was invented and to this day it's the best estimation tool ever invented. Seeing as how you're not familiar with the concept, I'm guessing, like Timothy, you missed out on this critical project management invention.
I might be able to provide some insight on the downturn in 'good' mangers. My girlfriend is a principal FAANG programmer, and it seems that the vision and "reputation" of management roles has become soured. This might be a larger generational trend, because I've heard similar complaints about new managers from older coworkers in my retail jobs as well. Short version is, people don't want to be an asshole, or deal with assholes. They, for better or worse, "just want to do the job". Programmers for example just want to write code and develop that skill, not be burdened with people problems. Of course, the reality isn't that bad, and having been in some supervisory roles myself, I know they can even be fun. But it's just not something as many people aspire to as they used to.
@@donaldothomoson yea it depends a lot on your coworkers, bosses, and general work environment. I've actively turned down higher positions because I would've had to be the middleman between aggressive managers and apathetic employees, and would've been blamed by each side for the other.
@@Anubis1101This. Being a middle-manager can be heaven or hell, all depends on the environment & people you're working with. Once turned down an offer to lead a different team, because I knew they'd been abused by the current manager, picking up awful habits. To do a good job in the role, I'd have had to fire everyone and hire fresh, and by that point, I was friends with those people, and disinclined to screw them over, even to benefit the company.
I was forced into the management role at some point of my career but I’ve never left the coding completely. The hardest part of the transition is learning to rely on people and make them comply with your vision. The programmers can be stubborn and even entitled at times to the point where I would let them fail within a reasonable frame so that the failure leads to the respect of the standards I ask them to uphold.
Hi Tim, I really love your videos! I’ve been getting into programming games with the programming language “Lua” for about a year now. I’ve been getting quite far and the passion for learning / creating is growing more and more with each passing day. I would love to hear the tips you have for someone to actually become a Junior programmer? Like is there anything you recommend to do before hand? Any classes to take? Also where would I go to try and apply to become one of these? Thank you so much in advance! I’ve seen every single one of your videos and will be waiting for the next one!
I went back and forth between senior and lead a few times in my games industry career. Sometimes there just wasn't anyone else to be lead. Back in the day, the pickings could be slim. But I hated being the lead. I didn't want to manage people, I didn't like managing people, and I frankly wasn't suited to managing people. I really just enjoyed writing code. Immensely. Being lead means more meetings and other people than writing code. For me, being lead was an example of the Peter Principle. I should really only ever have been a senior or a principal. At one point, someone tried to make me a TD and I just flat-out refused. I say know both your limitations and your preferences.
Unfortunately for us newer programmers, I have been seeing a lot more job listings for senior positions than junior programming positions. My assumption is that companies just can't afford to hire inexperienced people due to inflation or a lack of worksite mentors who can help. For now I have pretty much given up on my dreams of working within programming. I have the ability to do so because I have other things going on in life that I can do instead; but I can't say the same for my friend who lives and breathes programming, or anybody else I graduated with unfortunately.
Most of the time is bc junior is a highly competed area, jobs for those fill absolutely quickly, and seniors often take from half a year to a year to fill. I really don't have advice for that, I'm a junior myself and had luck with my current job, but don't give up, indies don't always describe junior programming positions as that
That is because these positions are often filled by people who is referred by their own staff, like the seniors or lead programmer know young programmers that can fill that role. Often programmers in the company are friends with university teachers that have students that want to get in the industry. This sort of stuff. To get a job without experience is hard because a lot of people want that job... I know it s_cks...
Prior commenters are right - networking is critical at all stages of your career, and competition is fiercest at the lowest-rungs. Two pieces of advice: 1- create a project, from idea to production, and package it such that you can easily show it off. None of my code-samples were viewed in my last job-search, but when I published a small mobile app/game to the Play Store, and brought it to the interview on a tablet, that impressed the hiring team. 2- Build your professional network with people who are already in the field, and ideally a bit more senior than raw recruits. This takes some time, and finesse, since you don't want to come off as a leech, or desperate for a job. You also need to cultivate it like a genuine relationship, supporting others as you would any social connections. Unfortunately networking is a skill that is woefully under-taught/ignored at the HS/college level, and a lot of folks just do not understand the difference between the guys you hang out with, and a professional peer network. But if you put some effort into it, it'll yield dividends, whether you stick with games/programming or not. Good luck!
Normally, the titles go like that: Junior -> Senior -> Staff -> Principal, Principal being the top technical title ever achievable. But again, maybe in gamedev everything's different.
I personally call staff programmers, middle programmers (so it's junior -> middle -> senior), but other than agree with everything being said. Although I don't have as much experience currently since I don't feel I ever had like a lead/principal programmer, since the biggest amount of programmers on 1 project I worked on professionally was 3 😅 I'm guessing it's quite a bit different paradigm working on triple/double A or otherwise bigger projects like RPGs vs smaller indie projects.
Oh yeah, and speaking of managers, they simply aren't needed. At all. I work at a multibillion dollar software company and while we do formally have a manager assigned to our project, the guy's participation in the product development comes down to having 1:1 meetings once a week and asking "is there anything you need?". They don't do anything technical, and all organizational things team members solve on their own anyway. Usually people want to be managers for two reasons: 1. They're there to make money, not product 2. They aren't capable of doing the technical jobs But what they fail to understand is being a manager is an extremely vulnerable position: you're completely replacable because you don't do anything technical anyway, you have no bargaining power at all, and you're in complete power of your superiors (because no bargaining power), which makes all managers feel very insecure and being yes-men to highups and which is why they rarely solve any real problems that the developers want them to solve. At best, a manager is invisible and doesn't get in the way. At worst, it's a source of frustration and project delays.
The thing I wish I had in university, is more real world work practice, because nothing I learned in 54 courses on Systems Engineering prepared me for the actual day to day work life and how actually work is done at a company level.
That's how education works, dude :) Avg university course/curriculum is drafted 2-5 years before students ever see it. So the focus in the classroom tends to be on more evergreen topics, foundational skills, and then a smattering of electives on more fast-moving topics of particular interest. The usual path in science & engineering used to be that you reached out to a prof to work on a research project *AND* picked up an internship or two outside, so that you got exposure to 1- real-world work experience, 2- bleeding-edge fieldwork, and 3- professional networks. Unfortunately, networking, internships, and research projects, much less talking to professors, have been all-but forgotten outside of elite schools. We were drilled in this stuff and taught to aggressively seek out such opportunities from my freshman & sophomore years in high school (mid-90s USA). You still see some students who pursue it, often returning/older students who already have some work/life exp, or those with parents in the field. But everyone else - incl most parents! - seems to assume the classroom provides all, and that's just never been the case.
Hey Tim, question for ya. I'm a mid-level gameplay programmer with a lot of passion for games and the industry. If I were to match your career trajectory based on YOE, I would currently be working on "my Fallout". Instead, however, I've always felt like a cog in the machine making someone else's passion (or, at its worst, a passionless product). How would you recommend folks navigate the often conflicting axioms of passion, agency, and increasing hyper-specialization in the industry as it stands today (while still making a living)? It seems like you getting started during the industry's infancy allowed you to have more agency - programmers were often also designers and writers, for example. More recently, you were senior enough that you got to steer the boat through leadership. What if you were navigating your career in the industry as it stands today, trying to put your passion and ideas out to players?
Not Tim, but I've spoken to a lot of pros in the games industry, at varying yoe. Common theme is a lot of folks who got into it looking to eventually pursue their passion-project, but 2, 5, even 10+ years later, there doesn't seem to be a real channel to go from "mailroom to boardroom" if you know what I mean. Some jump-ship to indie/smaller studios, where you'll (maybe) have more input, depending on the culture. Some just pursue their passion-projects on their own time/dime, possibly forming a new studio with friends/former coworkers, where possible. Personally, as an enterprise programmer, I see the salaries at games companies to be way below-market. So if you're going to end up doing your own games on the side anyway, might as well work outside the industry, and make decent money (with decent hours), and express your passion/agency elsewhere.
Comparing your career to someone famous in their industry like Tim isn’t fair to you. You can be great, have a wonderfully successful career and never achieve half of what he has done. So don’t sweat that part. I’m no Tim Cain but most people who go indie and succeed use a simple formula: -become financially independent enough to not make any money for 2-3 years (live with family or save your pennies, move somewhere cheap etc.) -develop your game -release and hope it makes money back This CAN work but it is a big risk, less so if you are young and unattached. I have also seen many more try the ‘night and weekends developing a passion project’ route. This seemingly never works. Unless you find a way to completely coast at your day job, having the energy after 40+ hours of work to make something real requires superhuman discipline.
Hi Tim! Do you believe as development teams gets larger and their skill sets are more pre-defined, in the age where the game engine does more out of the box, are you worried that game development is now more constrained to following established designs and the outcomes lead to less creative ideas overall? Say you have a networking code guy and he's used to doing networking a certain way using lobbies which determines how multiplayer games are formed which determines the incentive to play the game etc. Why do games have to have lobbies in the first place? Hopefully you see what I am getting at. Is there still room to adapt to the needs of a project with all of these pre-defined roles? I would love to hear your perspective on this.
"Staff Programmer" is something of an odd term. I've seen it used for people between juniors and seniors, but also for people above the grade of a principal. It seems to be a role for people who are prominent within the engineering staff, but not so much so as to be made a fellow.
Tim, I'm curious about UI/UX development in games. The quality and usability of these systems seems to vary quite a bit, regardless of the game's other elements. Is UX design taken seriously, in your opinion, or is it more of an afterthought? Are there any specific experiences related to it you can share that you haven't already?
I can't speak to the game industry specifically but UI/UX has changed in general software dev. There used to be an emphasis on building highly functional/productive/efficient (as in # of clicks to do x) and it was done by typical software devs. In more recent years, particularly since the term UI/UX has existed, it has become more specialized, viewed as not a typical developer task and the priorities have changed. Being efficient / functional is no longer a priority and instead looking pretty has taken over. Style over substance. This has also resulted in vast quantities of empty white space (aka wasted space) as an example. Yes, I understand graphic design principals and the need/utility of empty/negative space. But mostly its just wasted space in modern UIs and particularly web pages/apps. Old school devs with experience designing UIs that spans decades design and build very different UIs than newer devs who think in terms of UI/UX. There is currently a mix of both in the industry so who is in charge of an application/game UI probably determines how it turns out and what is prioritized.
@@Me__Myself__and__I yea ive noticed that trend and i hate it. im very particular about practicality and user experience, and it seems to me its really gone downhill in the last couple decades, its been sad to watch. its not just games, but everything. like you pointed out, webpages are a huge area, but programs, PC operating systems, and especially phone apps/OSs have also been greatly affected. gone are the days when you can just pick something up and fiddle with it a few minutes to find where everything is
@@Anubis1101 Oh and that reminds me. It used to be a big deal to support multiple ways of accessing functionality (menus, function keys, tool bars, etc) because,it was understood that different people use apps in different ways. But this is la4gely gone now, its quite common to force users to conform to the app instead of the app being configurable to the user's preferences. I think some of this is driven by Apple who have always been pretty bad about such things but somehow they are seen as UI thought leaders in recent years.
@@Me__Myself__and__I a great example I remembered is PlayStation. They invented the XMB for the PSP and PS3, which was so intuitive, you could sit someone down who'd never touched a console before, and they'd get the hang of the interface in a few minutes. Fast forward to the PS5, and it's so obfuscated, with layers of inconsistent and arbitrary menus clogging up the experience, as well as a bunch of hidden or missing features and settings. To see them fall so far... It's depressing.
@@Anubis1101 I haven't seen the PS5 but that sounds terrible and, sadly, matching expectations. Windows is a great example. Back in the days of Windows 95 Microsoft wrote good general GUI requirements that any software wanting to display the W95 compatible logo had to meet. They were good guidelines and thus Windows apps were consistent. Now they ignore those rules and do stupid stuff like the Windows 10/11 GUI. It was so bad at one point even experienced Windows users could not find the start button to navigate a new install. The only way I consider it usable is to install software that restores much of the Windows 7 GUI (which was the last good one). GUI design is unfunctional garbage these days.
Hi Tim, What are your thoughts on visual scripting in engines and do you think it could a viable alternative to learning how to write code for someone who's interested in the design aspect of games and wants to make presentable demos and short games for his resume and to grow as a designer? I know of a solo dev who made a game that is somewhat mechanically complex (it's a 3D platformer) and he "didn't write a single line of code" (his words) and used Unreal's blueprints. The game is Pumpkin Jack, in case you want to look it up.
Not Tim but have some personal experience that you may find interesting. In the studios I've worked in, designers are expected to implement their ideas via visual scripting (with the support of engineers). So yeah, definitely worth doing to practice and create a portfolio as that's exactly what you'd be doing at most studios. Worth mentioning that learning to code will still help you achieve your goals. Designers who have stronger coding backgrounds are highly appreciate by programmers as they are less likely to cause headaches like implementing something in a non-performant way. Maybe something to consider doing on the backburner.
Wonderful video. Could the management issue be related to the increased corporatization of the games industry? Bc people who want to be managers who should not be managers sounds exactly like what has happened to UPS since 2010 and the vast shift in corporate culture that happened around then.
"The ones most deserving to lead are the ones who don't want to" is a phrase that pops up throughout history in one form or other. Such is the way of things.
Hey man, loving the videos so far but I have to say I laughed when you said the job of a junior is to learn how to write and debug your own code. These days if you want to land a job you have to already be as experienced/ skilled as a senior when you're only applying for entry level expecting to learn on the job further. The risk and time expense for a company to decide to put into you to learn on the job and become skilled for them is so high that I'm discovering that they'd rather not employ anybody and just outsource to contractors or small third party studios all over the world.
But then they're still hiring juniors, they're just outsourcing the risk. A lot of those offshore contractors & support-studios hire folks with questionable code, or just lack the direct-project experience that in-house devs would. So instead the company hires senior/lead programmers to "oversee" the code submitted by the contractors. Same effect as having in-house juniors, except that they never skill-up to full productivity (not for you anyway), and they don't get job benefits.
"My experience is that good managers are becoming rarer, harder to find, or unwilling to step into management roles." Anyone know whether this is particularly a programmer thing vs a wider industry thing?
Are junior programming roles common in the game industry? Would you be able to expect to start as a junior and then go to staff or is it more common to have to get enough experience independently to make the staff programming position right away? I understand in a perfect world that most people would start as a junior and gain the experience to make staff programmer on the job, but I’ve heard in many other tech based industries that entry level positions are hard to come by.
They aren't very common at the moment. If you are attending college, there are still a fair amount of internships to get your foot in the door. However, currently the industry is contracting and most studios are looking to higher mid to senior level people. This will change when the industry starts to expand again and more junior roles will pop up. It's an unfortunate cycle.
"Hope you get an insight into how the games are made" - true, but also how the games are not made. How many top-tier projects fumbled due to mismanagement? And no that's not because the management was bad, that's because the entire system of even having a hierarchy was bad. These bad systems keep producing bad results - both internally (people leave the company and say they hated working there) and externally (the product flops).
Tim, I've heard people on Twitter say things like, "There's no such thing as a Junior Programmer position." or "The Junior Programmer title is just an excuse to under-pay programmers". I come from a retail background, where staff is purposely kept at an inefficient level to save money, so those statements make sense to me. However, what you just said also makes sense to me. Do you take those Twitter comments to be incendiary and/or unrealistic? Or would you say there's some truth to them?
Im entering the indie game dev world. I know im way ahead of myself but i keep wondering if i could only hire 1 person, what position should that fill. Whats your position on that?
A friend of mine who has been in the industry for a while, has often had to work with leads or seniors that seem to be ego-driven narcissists. Their manegerial skills have as a result been awful and the workplace as a whole has been horrible to work at. Usually these types of managers have been protected by producers or other higher-ups, as well, so no amount of criticism or feedback from developers have lead to any kind of improvements. On the contrary, people who speak up, no matter how constructive and cordial, have often been fired or kicked off a project as a result. Tim, what would you suggest if budding developers find themselves in similar situations as this? It kind of feels hopeless, as you need those game credits and referrals to be able to get anywhere in the industry.
This has always been the case, I remember similar situations from the 90s. If you have to report to such a person get yourself transferred or find a new job. Or if your the type just be quiet and fall in line. I can never do that personally, I refuse to put up with bad behavior and especially 8f they are also wrong/not good at coding. So I found a new job the few times I was in such a situation. Office politics, nepotism, 8ncompetant higher managers, etc. can result in this. Fighting it almost never works, if the company/division was interested in meritocracy such cases would be very rare and would get sorted out. But if its prevalent or the person has been in the role quite awhile they are likely protected and not going anywhere (at least easily). I have in fact gotten several such individuals fired over my career, but it has also cost me my job there every time. Usually I lose mine because said person is protected, but then on the way out I give the proper people detailed info about the situation that leads them to look into it and then that manager/s3nior gets let go a few weeks or months later. I'm fine with this personally, I don't have trouble finding jobs and I refuse to work for people who are truly incompetent or hostile/machivellian. But few people are willing to stand up if it puts their job on the line. So for most people, keep your mouth shut and change positions.
I'm a little confused on "the industry is not there to teach you how to code". I mean obviously your job shouldn't be teaching the basics but I was under the impression that industry coding is much different than the small things you do at school.
Can we all take a minute to appreciate how well groomed Tim always is? Makes me self conscious about me biting my nails LOL. Serious talk, the part about managers... so spot on.
What are your thoughts on holacracy, or the management-free development, in gamedev? It's ostensibly the model adopted by Valve, though it's obviously a special case. What kind of projects or teams can it work for? Would it stand up to its purported benefits, such as unleashing creativity, better efficiency and increased sense of ownership for the developers? How would it impact the hiring practice? What about things like crunch? Thank you for your videos.
Does the lead programmer actually program? In my company they don't, they just send emails and delegate everything you said to other programmers. Maybe they should be called programmer leads instead.
The lead programmer should be the one doing all the merging and code reviews and be in charge of the main architecture and the core/critical/hardest parts of programming, what you are refering to is actually just a manager?
There is a trend, particularly I noticed it in California, not to have "junior" developers. In other states juniors existed as a role, but in several years in CA no company I worked with had juniors. Oh, they DEFINITELY had them, but they were programmers not junior programmers and as a result there was no middle tier role effectively. This always seemed to be for reasons such as "no one likes to be referred to as junior/lesser". Sigh. I considered this very problematic because as explained very well in this video there is a sizable difference between junior, mid and senior roles. Note that this was not game development, just general software development.
@@mandisaw Seriously, no. A person would need at least like 10 years of work exp (school doesn't count) to even begin to think they might be senior. This trend of unexperienced newbs thinking they are all that is fairly recent.
@@Me__Myself__and__I Young people not knowing what they don't know, and being full of themselves is as old as human civilization 😅 At this point, I think it's an important maturity milestone when you realize you don't know shit, or at least not nearly as much as you *think* you know.
@@mandisaw But that isn't the case. They don't "find out" or admit they don't know. They double down, insist they are right and then play the victim card if necessary. That did not used to be the case in software dev. Not everyone, obviously. But enough to be problematic and lower software quality.
@@Me__Myself__and__IHmm, nah, we had them in the 90s & 00s too. It's just a human behavior flaw, or an unfortunate phase of development. Typically everyone just hits The Wall at some point, and be forced to either learn/grow, ask for help (mature), or accept defeat (remain stunted). Ideally, that point happens earlier in life, during HS/college, so you can "get the stupid knocked out" as my late hubby used to say. I'm quite sure I said some idiotic shit as a teen/young adult, and then some kind person educated me, or I got that insight later on my own. Difference now is that many folks make it deep into their 20s (or 30s!) without course-correcting. Challenging, but not _new_ per se.
If you aren't willing to listen and compromise with your team members, you are going to have a bad time and they will have an even worse time. By the way Tim, have you tried the fallout 1in2 mod before? I am currently playing it, it's cool!
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the current state of junior positions requiring 3-7 years of industry (sometimes more) experience with credits and for less than 21k a year I feel like because the industry is maturing, the calibre of employees are increasing and hiring staff don't know how to account for that other than lowering wage and increasing requirements For me, working in a different industry, I've been a senior and a manager and I very much dislike management I want employees to do their best and help train and mentor them into achieving their full potential I don't want to run interference to stop higher-ups demoralising my team, I don't do corporate politics well, and I don't want to meet firing quotas A lot of people I know are like me and they dislike management in general because of what they represent, and often times as well that they don't care about being a good manager and are just seeking the next promotion
Based on the description of "can't blame junior, because it was decided on by senior" - I can see that gamedev is veeery far behind in software development methodologies, it still sounds like something out of 2005. In modern projects, nobody ever blames any single person, not only because teams discuss everything upfront, but also because there is code review and testing. Stuff simply doesn't slip into production environment unchecked. So, in a horizonal team, someone would do their best, and it's up to reviewers or discussion participants to offer an improvement. There is no blame, people simply don't think in those terms at all.
Tim Gonna be enshrouded in complete darkness in the next video at this point lol
Lol
me to
Dark Tim
Makes me think of the talking heads 😅
@@SDKSeizO makes me think of OMD
As a gamer working in software development, but not game development, I find your videos very interesting.
I've been wanting to transition into the games industry, but I'm not really sure where to start educating myself. (I currently maintain an SQL DB code tree)
BUMP
I'd recommend picking up a low-level language like C or C++ if you haven't already. There are some new players like Rust, but the industry is still largely dominated by older languages, and most of them are very similar to C anyway.
I recommend The Cherno's channel, he's a programmer who's worked at EA for years and has some great videos and playlist tutorials specifically about game programming.
After that, figure out whether you want to join a company or do your own thing. That's all you, I can't really advise one way or the other, because they each have their own challenges. Once you figure that out, you can start to narrow your studies to what will help you on that path.
Step 1. Become a (good) tools programmer.
Step 2. Choose which job offer you want to accept.
Tim had an earlier video about starting in the industry. His top advice was to make a game. Make _something_ that you can attach to a resume or bring with you to show that you're doing the work. It doesn't have to be the best game ever made, but it has to show your strengths while also show that you understand on some level about game development. And I think that advice is still relevant to the quickly changing landscape in the industry today.
There are non game development software engineer roles at game companies. Stuff like working on their internal tooling (not game engine), web development, etc. Maybe start looking there? I'm not sure, I'm not in the games industry either.
Timothy you are a gem. I have been binge-watching all of your videos lately lol. I just finished my bachelors and am trying to enter the industry.
I have had some experience in this world as a junior and staff before I decided to go all-in indie. It's funny because when I was young people told me life was tough, and that working is hard. And when I got into the industry I was surprised to find out the reality was the other way around. There was a lot of "baby-sitting" with juniors. My coworkers, not only low level but also seniors were very unproductive. I often found myself in one of these 3 situations: - not knowing what to do because other people haven't decided what has to be done, - finishing work early and having to do nothing, waiting for others, - trying to optimize my already optimized code, because I had nothing else to do. I guess it's important to note that I have also had some experience before coding for non-gaming startup companies, so I was used to high pressure work environment and that tinted how I viewed this experience. This game job was like playing an incredibly easy game on Very Easy mode and I was used to play hardcore games on max difficulty. That is why I left the job, frankly I was bored to death, and I saw all potential I had and was being wasted there. And that is the story of how I decided to go all-in indie! Still working on my first commercial game now, burning through my savings! lol! But it's going great, living that dream 16 hours/day of programming life style 😎. Maybe the lesson here is: people is really not the same.
Your youtube channel is empty though, why not slap up some promotional video to get started with some PR? Gotta make back the spent savings somehow.
@Badguy292 You are 100% right, I will start doing that soon. Waiting to the game get to a state I'm proud to "reveal" it. Then I plan to do trailers and devlogs going forward. For now I'm using this account just to chat. 😉
@@developerdeveloper67 good luck, i am planning to do something similar soon. But i still don't feel comfortable quitting my job, so... respect! :)
@@MeisVlk Thanks, man! Good luck for you too. Let's go! 💪
Yeah, I was gonna say you probably want to work in a startup / indy environment. Corporate just sucks the life out of it.
Super useful rundown, thanks! I rarely see this info explained outside of once you already have the job. Also when talking about the lead role you defaulted to "he". Probably because you were remembering someone specifically, but couldn't hurt to say "they" and give the ladies a chance!
Happy 26th birthday, Fallout! I'm pretty sure it is at least, but you'd know for sure Tim lol. Thank you for giving us the best games and your wisdom!
I'm so glad to have found your channel! Seems like you got about 5 months of content for me! you are a legend.
5 months?! It's been a week and I've watched all but 10! 😅
Oh dont worry, It wont be taking me 5 months. Hes first upload was 5 months ago. So good im not to behind hahaha@@Rentash
Tim creates videos faster than i can watch them. I am a huge fan of fallout 1, this is like a dream come true :D
I'm glad that such a person like you is so casually sharing all that knowledge with the rest of the world.
Great video Tim. Would love to see you walk through the organization of a studio even more, if possible. Hitting the other departments, etc. Maybe you could walk everyone through a credits list of Outer Worlds or another game you’ve worked on!?
This is the best UA-cam channel I have ever found :D My uncle who is in game development couldn't tell me all this unfortunately because henis my inspiration
I can't stop watching these videos, keep them coming, Tim!
Great to see you and your mesmerizing ball again today!
These videos are so insightful. Thank for taking the time to make them!
Hey Tim, loving your videos!
I had a question i'd love to get your thoughts on. As someone who is in the hiring process for a well renowned studio, but has limited experience in the video game development industry, I'm curious to hear what you value the most in new hires, what you'd like new hires to know from the outset, and what your expectations for newbies to the industry are in terms of their capacity to learn quickly and adapt to different studio cultures. If you've got any stories as well as tips, please feel free to include them!
Thanks for uploading these videos. It's incredibly informative, entertaining, and quite grounding to be able to get a glimpse into your thought process. Great work!
Happy 26 th Birthday of The Fallout 1 !! Thank you sir and the one who worked with you for this greatest game all the time . I wish you have a great life to you and to your family
Regarding people not wanting to be lead/managers and opting for principal and such instead I think office politics have become even less fun and more difficult over the last couple decades AND being a manager no longer has as much status/appeal in general particularly since roles like principal are now possible. Speaking from experience as someone who is good at software (people) management but hates doing it. Another alternative to principal is software architect roles, which is a related but separate skill set. Principal, lead and even senior devs are often expected to do some architecture as part of their responsibilities but I've noticed that being very good at coding or architecture does not means one is also good at the other.
We've seen a lot of newly-minted programmers without any soft-skills, so I suspect that their management potential is stymied based on that. Office politics and administrative BS has always been a drag for mgmt roles, but the trade-off was more salary, flexibility, and ideally, the power to create change (hopefully for the better). As orgs get larger and more rigid, with power concentrated very high up, middle-management doesn't have the allure it once had, particularly when even lead/senior roles can command quite lucrative salaries and flexibility. Changing attitudes toward work-life balance and the always-on nature of mgmt may also play a part.
Damn this video is such a precious gem. This is the kind of insight I really like! Thank you so much for this!! :D
Always massively educational and/or interesting.
Has someone who has been both lead and principal programmer, my opinion is that dealing with people is hard and compensation does not reflect the amount if shit you get as a manager. As a technical expert you get to be mr wiseman that everyone consult when they have an issue covered by your domain.
No, Leads work with tech and people, Principal's get the hardest tech challenges, that require full focus to get it right.
True, personally I prefer "lead by example" leaders instead of managers who don't do much actual work. Internally it might also be the source of managers being insecure and less people want to go down that route. Also there are managers who are under the title of team lead as well, very confusing to juniors.
Also, a lot of managers don't seem to realize their role is to direct the overall workflow, not the lives of those supposedly in their "charge". That's among the many reasons why "bosses" are generally disliked by their supposed underlings along with a plethora of nonreasons. One has to be okay with being disliked, reason or no, to take on a lead role, but I've actually had a manager (in another industry) forbid me from ever engaging even in friendly conversation with a specific co-worker, for example, because he didn't want me (or anyone else) knowing what was actually going on in the workplace despite that the knowledge might have alleviated some of the pressure from "on high" both on him and everyone else to accomplish the physically impossible actually being demanded of us had it been shared with the company's regional manager and/or headquarters. (And the company wonders why it can't keep managers.)
That's an extreme example, of course, and (of course) I ignored that directive because it literallly wasn't within the manager's province to tell me or any other employee who they can and cannot speak with. Delegating work responsibilities and holding people accountable for the work responsibilities they've been assigned is quite a different thing from telling people what they can and cannot do with their lives and too many business leaders are in the business of doing just that, high on the supposed power they wield. Well, no one has power over us we don't give them ourselves and managers might be more aware of the fact across the board.
@@lrinfi Because some managers see their roles as managing people and figuring out how to allocate resources. They don't want to go outside of that responsibility since why should they?
That will cause huge problems if there is a communication gap between managers and developers. Not every developer / programmer can be a great communicator, if the manager refuses to think in other people's shoes even a tiny bit, that will be a hyper frustrating workplace to be in.
@@echoness_ "some managers see their roles as managing people" -- There is an article, if interested, on that very subject titled 'Is Human Resources Out of Date?'
Was it ever in-date? Human beings are not "resources" to be managed. They're family -- members of a species. As Oren Lyons said of fish, "Fish are not 'resources'. They're family. Fish are our family." At least, in the indigenous tradition, they are. Most of the rest of us tend to think of them quite differently, much as "HR" tends to think of people.
@@lrinfi The people working in HR are also real person, they can have biases, personal agendas, a false sense of authority and ego even they don't speak out publicly, those can be reflected in their actions. I'm not saying all HRs are like that, but it's a situation that can happen.
When that happens it will be very costly to pretty everybody within the company.
I agree that the current HR system pretty much dehumanizes the candidates since the critieria of getting an interview is how much you can get your resume "perfectly" match the job responsibilities without considering that in workplace there are much more to it than just matching skills. Putting the responsibilities of recruiting the people you want to work with in an independent system that has nothing to do with your work doesn't make sense.
@@echoness_ Nope. It doesn't make sense and it makes even less sense to automate the hiring process to the degree it's been automated at this point. You can't go anywhere and fill out an application for employment anumore, for the most part. You have to apply online and do make sure you type in the right keywords (if you know them) in your application so that it will come up among the first results in the systems' search function. You're not going to get the person best suited for the position by looking them up in the sytem by keyword and inviting those whose applications appear in the top three results in for an interview, yet it happens all the time.
It's the concept of humans as resources and this notion that everything can be automated that's become ingrained. Human Resource departments used to be called Personnel, which isn't all that much better given its origins, but at least human beings at the time were still more often viewed, thought of and treated more as persons. The change in language has given away the change in mindset and further removed us from reality. I don't even particularly like the term, "teams," myself. What are we? Playing football here? Rah, Rah, Sis Boom Bah?
George Carlin's skit, Euphemisms, again comes to mind. Actually, it's coming to mind a lot these days.
Hi Tim! (Hope this is the right place to ask a question now): how did you guys come up with 'Arcanum'? Picking the right game titles are tough , like you explained for Fallout. But like Fallout, Arcanum just seems to perfect, I wonder what the process was to come up with it.
It's important to keep in mind that not all companies have a strict hierarchy, and from my observations in the last 10 years there was a significant shift towards horizontal teams. There is no authority and everyone brings some value to the end product in whatever areas they can, nobody assigns people anything, the teams decide by themselves what they want to work on, and so on. You can call it democratic. One of the important direct results from that approach, is it doesn't matter where a good idea comes from - anyone can suggest anything to anyone else, and thus the end product is of higher quality because people don't think in terms of "who I report to", "what is my area of responsibility", they don't get locked up into silos without understanding anything around, and so on. I don't know if this ever happens in gamedev, but for non-gamedev it happens all the time.
"from my observations in the last 10 years there was a significant shift towards horizontal teams" -- Indeed, there has been. Wonderful to see. It doesn't spell doom for "vertical" organization, but brings a balance to the workplace I've enjoyed only once: when I was working for a family trio of Armenians from Lebanon from whom I learned so much more than all my schooling, friends and family combined. That was the atmosphere; that was the environment; and, despite that we had our disagreements (and Dad fought with his sons quite a lot), it was the single, most enjoyable work experience of my life. Bless 'em. I felt as though I belonged there and had finally found home.
Times, they are a-changin', but excessively large organizations, especially, are incredibly slow to change compared to the more human scale organizations because human scale organizations aren't as immovably set in their ways.
In my experience all such organizations produce worse results, take longer to achieve it and don't attract the best people. People who aren't very good, want to avoid responsibility or don't work very hard are attracted to such teams. This is an organization bred from political correctness and not technical reasons or a desire to produce better results. Yeah, some will not like me for saying that, but its the cold hard truth. And based off the example I heard Tim give about some task he estimated at 45 minutes being estimated by the team at 4 weeks - I'd bet he has similar experiences because such teams breed these types of inefficiencies and lack of responsibility.
@@Me__Myself__and__I > all such organizations [..] don't attract the best people.
Strict hierarchy and areas of responsibility give you less freedom, not more. If someone is "best" as you say, how is not letting them contribute to the areas they've got good ideas for is better?
There's a lot to unpack in your comment, but let's try with this one point here.
@@ethreix800 Because they still contribute wherever it makes sense. Having a hierarchy does not mean everyone has blinders on and no one listens. That does sometimes occur in bad teams/organizations but it has nothing to do with hierarchy. Hierarchy means that some individual is responsible for each of the important things. Which actuall6 makes it easier to meaningfully contribute because you know who to go talk to. Not having a hierarchy is like trying to heard cats, chaos. Also, just because someone likes/wants to do something does not mean they should. They may not actually be good at that thing or someone else may be a better choice. In a hierarchy its much more likely that the best person will be assigned to each task instead of the person who most wants to do it. Also, when their is no hierarchy people tend to slack off. Without hierarchy a person takes a task that sounds fun/interesting (instead of something they are experienced/good at) then they turn in an estimate that is way too much time. But since no one is in charge and no one has hrsponsibility for that thing they get away with wasting that time.
@@Me__Myself__and__I > Because they still contribute wherever it makes sense.
No they don't, because most often they will be told it's not their responsibility, not their decision and they should bugger off. That's the baseline.
> Having a hierarchy does not mean everyone has blinders on and no one listens.
Realistically, most often that's what happens. And I'm telling you this as a silo hopper, someone who ignores the boundaries and talks to everyone outside of my "responsibilities range", and quite often people hate me for that, because I'm pointing out how they can do something better although they didn't ask me for it. And that's exactly why silo hoppers are a rare phenomenon, because people are afraid to "confront" someone else at work, afraid to go out of their boundaries for the betterment of the project. Most people are focused on making money and covering their ass and their ego, not making the product better.
> Hierarchy means that some individual is responsible for each of the important things. Which actuall6 makes it easier to meaningfully contribute because you know who to go talk to. Not having a hierarchy is like trying to heard cats, chaos.
Completely false. Imagine you and your friends go for a hike in the mountains. How do you decide who makes and maintains the campfire, who gathers and chops the wood, who sets the tents, who cooks, who brings water, etc? Shocking revelation: you do it by talking to each other and agreeing on things because that's why you came here, you all have the same goal in mind and you cooperate naturally. Same thing happens with horizontal teams: nobody is forcing you to do anything, you came here because you like your job, you like the product and you're excited to work some of its parts. And that naturally leads to devs specializing in some areas and naturally everyone else knows who's focusing on what and therefore who to talk to.
> Also, just because someone likes/wants to do something does not mean they should. They may not actually be good at that thing or someone else may be a better choice.
The team will find out soon enough and self-correct. Peer pressure is a powerful thing.
> In a hierarchy its much more likely that the best person will be assigned to each task instead of the person who most wants to do it.
You'll have to elaborate on this, because common sense says if 1 person (so-called leader) can identify who's good at what, pretty high chances are so could other people. Moreover, with multiple people being engaged in the feedback loop (saying who's good for what) there is less chance of making a bad judgement, that's how probability theory works (and that's, by the way, why direct democracy mathematically always wins over a power hierarchy).
> Also, when their is no hierarchy people tend to slack off.
People slack off regardless of hierarchy. But if the team depends on that person's work, there will be peer pressure.
> they turn in an estimate that is way too much time
Which is why poker planning was invented and to this day it's the best estimation tool ever invented. Seeing as how you're not familiar with the concept, I'm guessing, like Timothy, you missed out on this critical project management invention.
I might be able to provide some insight on the downturn in 'good' mangers. My girlfriend is a principal FAANG programmer, and it seems that the vision and "reputation" of management roles has become soured. This might be a larger generational trend, because I've heard similar complaints about new managers from older coworkers in my retail jobs as well.
Short version is, people don't want to be an asshole, or deal with assholes. They, for better or worse, "just want to do the job". Programmers for example just want to write code and develop that skill, not be burdened with people problems.
Of course, the reality isn't that bad, and having been in some supervisory roles myself, I know they can even be fun. But it's just not something as many people aspire to as they used to.
@@donaldothomoson yea it depends a lot on your coworkers, bosses, and general work environment.
I've actively turned down higher positions because I would've had to be the middleman between aggressive managers and apathetic employees, and would've been blamed by each side for the other.
@@Anubis1101This. Being a middle-manager can be heaven or hell, all depends on the environment & people you're working with. Once turned down an offer to lead a different team, because I knew they'd been abused by the current manager, picking up awful habits. To do a good job in the role, I'd have had to fire everyone and hire fresh, and by that point, I was friends with those people, and disinclined to screw them over, even to benefit the company.
I was forced into the management role at some point of my career but I’ve never left the coding completely. The hardest part of the transition is learning to rely on people and make them comply with your vision. The programmers can be stubborn and even entitled at times to the point where I would let them fail within a reasonable frame so that the failure leads to the respect of the standards I ask them to uphold.
Oof
Hi Tim, I really love your videos! I’ve been getting into programming games with the programming language “Lua” for about a year now. I’ve been getting quite far and the passion for learning / creating is growing more and more with each passing day. I would love to hear the tips you have for someone to actually become a Junior programmer? Like is there anything you recommend to do before hand? Any classes to take? Also where would I go to try and apply to become one of these? Thank you so much in advance! I’ve seen every single one of your videos and will be waiting for the next one!
inb4 "do a computer science degree"
To clarify, are you asking about becoming a programmer in general or specifically a game-related programming role?
I went back and forth between senior and lead a few times in my games industry career. Sometimes there just wasn't anyone else to be lead. Back in the day, the pickings could be slim. But I hated being the lead. I didn't want to manage people, I didn't like managing people, and I frankly wasn't suited to managing people. I really just enjoyed writing code. Immensely. Being lead means more meetings and other people than writing code. For me, being lead was an example of the Peter Principle. I should really only ever have been a senior or a principal. At one point, someone tried to make me a TD and I just flat-out refused. I say know both your limitations and your preferences.
Unfortunately for us newer programmers, I have been seeing a lot more job listings for senior positions than junior programming positions. My assumption is that companies just can't afford to hire inexperienced people due to inflation or a lack of worksite mentors who can help.
For now I have pretty much given up on my dreams of working within programming. I have the ability to do so because I have other things going on in life that I can do instead; but I can't say the same for my friend who lives and breathes programming, or anybody else I graduated with unfortunately.
Most of the time is bc junior is a highly competed area, jobs for those fill absolutely quickly, and seniors often take from half a year to a year to fill.
I really don't have advice for that, I'm a junior myself and had luck with my current job, but don't give up, indies don't always describe junior programming positions as that
That is because these positions are often filled by people who is referred by their own staff, like the seniors or lead programmer know young programmers that can fill that role. Often programmers in the company are friends with university teachers that have students that want to get in the industry. This sort of stuff. To get a job without experience is hard because a lot of people want that job... I know it s_cks...
Prior commenters are right - networking is critical at all stages of your career, and competition is fiercest at the lowest-rungs. Two pieces of advice: 1- create a project, from idea to production, and package it such that you can easily show it off. None of my code-samples were viewed in my last job-search, but when I published a small mobile app/game to the Play Store, and brought it to the interview on a tablet, that impressed the hiring team.
2- Build your professional network with people who are already in the field, and ideally a bit more senior than raw recruits. This takes some time, and finesse, since you don't want to come off as a leech, or desperate for a job. You also need to cultivate it like a genuine relationship, supporting others as you would any social connections.
Unfortunately networking is a skill that is woefully under-taught/ignored at the HS/college level, and a lot of folks just do not understand the difference between the guys you hang out with, and a professional peer network. But if you put some effort into it, it'll yield dividends, whether you stick with games/programming or not. Good luck!
I love that the background is progressively getting darker and darker with each video
Normally, the titles go like that: Junior -> Senior -> Staff -> Principal, Principal being the top technical title ever achievable. But again, maybe in gamedev everything's different.
^this is accurate, but some places arent big enough so senior to principal can be acheived.
I personally call staff programmers, middle programmers (so it's junior -> middle -> senior), but other than agree with everything being said. Although I don't have as much experience currently since I don't feel I ever had like a lead/principal programmer, since the biggest amount of programmers on 1 project I worked on professionally was 3 😅 I'm guessing it's quite a bit different paradigm working on triple/double A or otherwise bigger projects like RPGs vs smaller indie projects.
staff is the next level after senior, another term is expert. Its the teir between senior and principle, if a company is large enough
Oh yeah, and speaking of managers, they simply aren't needed. At all. I work at a multibillion dollar software company and while we do formally have a manager assigned to our project, the guy's participation in the product development comes down to having 1:1 meetings once a week and asking "is there anything you need?". They don't do anything technical, and all organizational things team members solve on their own anyway.
Usually people want to be managers for two reasons:
1. They're there to make money, not product
2. They aren't capable of doing the technical jobs
But what they fail to understand is being a manager is an extremely vulnerable position: you're completely replacable because you don't do anything technical anyway, you have no bargaining power at all, and you're in complete power of your superiors (because no bargaining power), which makes all managers feel very insecure and being yes-men to highups and which is why they rarely solve any real problems that the developers want them to solve. At best, a manager is invisible and doesn't get in the way. At worst, it's a source of frustration and project delays.
Nice, thanks.
The thing I wish I had in university, is more real world work practice, because nothing I learned in 54 courses on Systems Engineering prepared me for the actual day to day work life and how actually work is done at a company level.
same, I feel like a got scammed at university :(
That's how education works, dude :) Avg university course/curriculum is drafted 2-5 years before students ever see it. So the focus in the classroom tends to be on more evergreen topics, foundational skills, and then a smattering of electives on more fast-moving topics of particular interest. The usual path in science & engineering used to be that you reached out to a prof to work on a research project *AND* picked up an internship or two outside, so that you got exposure to 1- real-world work experience, 2- bleeding-edge fieldwork, and 3- professional networks.
Unfortunately, networking, internships, and research projects, much less talking to professors, have been all-but forgotten outside of elite schools. We were drilled in this stuff and taught to aggressively seek out such opportunities from my freshman & sophomore years in high school (mid-90s USA). You still see some students who pursue it, often returning/older students who already have some work/life exp, or those with parents in the field.
But everyone else - incl most parents! - seems to assume the classroom provides all, and that's just never been the case.
The fact you upload daily giving us gaming industry knowledge is why you’re one of the greats
If he didn't, like in the past, it somehow makes him not one of the greats? You have problems with formal logic.
Hey Tim, question for ya. I'm a mid-level gameplay programmer with a lot of passion for games and the industry. If I were to match your career trajectory based on YOE, I would currently be working on "my Fallout". Instead, however, I've always felt like a cog in the machine making someone else's passion (or, at its worst, a passionless product). How would you recommend folks navigate the often conflicting axioms of passion, agency, and increasing hyper-specialization in the industry as it stands today (while still making a living)? It seems like you getting started during the industry's infancy allowed you to have more agency - programmers were often also designers and writers, for example. More recently, you were senior enough that you got to steer the boat through leadership. What if you were navigating your career in the industry as it stands today, trying to put your passion and ideas out to players?
Not Tim, but I've spoken to a lot of pros in the games industry, at varying yoe. Common theme is a lot of folks who got into it looking to eventually pursue their passion-project, but 2, 5, even 10+ years later, there doesn't seem to be a real channel to go from "mailroom to boardroom" if you know what I mean. Some jump-ship to indie/smaller studios, where you'll (maybe) have more input, depending on the culture. Some just pursue their passion-projects on their own time/dime, possibly forming a new studio with friends/former coworkers, where possible.
Personally, as an enterprise programmer, I see the salaries at games companies to be way below-market. So if you're going to end up doing your own games on the side anyway, might as well work outside the industry, and make decent money (with decent hours), and express your passion/agency elsewhere.
Comparing your career to someone famous in their industry like Tim isn’t fair to you. You can be great, have a wonderfully successful career and never achieve half of what he has done. So don’t sweat that part.
I’m no Tim Cain but most people who go indie and succeed use a simple formula:
-become financially independent enough to not make any money for 2-3 years (live with family or save your pennies, move somewhere cheap etc.)
-develop your game
-release and hope it makes money back
This CAN work but it is a big risk, less so if you are young and unattached.
I have also seen many more try the ‘night and weekends developing a passion project’ route. This seemingly never works. Unless you find a way to completely coast at your day job, having the energy after 40+ hours of work to make something real requires superhuman discipline.
Got home from work just in time for my daily Tim video 🍺🍻
I love the thumbnail for this. Tim looks like Andross from Starfox.
i learrn so much from these. thank you so much sir. kept me entertained as a kid and makin' me much more less dumb now
Interesting on Staff, where I work(non-gaming) it's a step between Senior and Principal. There's also Senior Staff.
nice spooky background for spooktober
Hi Tim! Do you believe as development teams gets larger and their skill sets are more pre-defined, in the age where the game engine does more out of the box, are you worried that game development is now more constrained to following established designs and the outcomes lead to less creative ideas overall? Say you have a networking code guy and he's used to doing networking a certain way using lobbies which determines how multiplayer games are formed which determines the incentive to play the game etc. Why do games have to have lobbies in the first place? Hopefully you see what I am getting at. Is there still room to adapt to the needs of a project with all of these pre-defined roles? I would love to hear your perspective on this.
Peobably unintentional but the thumbnail is seving big Bob Fosse vibes, I dig it.
Good morning Tim 🙂
"Staff Programmer" is something of an odd term. I've seen it used for people between juniors and seniors, but also for people above the grade of a principal. It seems to be a role for people who are prominent within the engineering staff, but not so much so as to be made a fellow.
Hello Uncle Tim! Happy 26 years of Fallout 1! :D
Normally you hit the right beats, but one misstep is staff is between senior and principal. Sometimes also called expert.
Thumbnail: I caught a fish this big, I swear!
Combat strike team sounds badass
Tim, I'm curious about UI/UX development in games. The quality and usability of these systems seems to vary quite a bit, regardless of the game's other elements.
Is UX design taken seriously, in your opinion, or is it more of an afterthought? Are there any specific experiences related to it you can share that you haven't already?
I can't speak to the game industry specifically but UI/UX has changed in general software dev. There used to be an emphasis on building highly functional/productive/efficient (as in # of clicks to do x) and it was done by typical software devs. In more recent years, particularly since the term UI/UX has existed, it has become more specialized, viewed as not a typical developer task and the priorities have changed. Being efficient / functional is no longer a priority and instead looking pretty has taken over. Style over substance. This has also resulted in vast quantities of empty white space (aka wasted space) as an example. Yes, I understand graphic design principals and the need/utility of empty/negative space. But mostly its just wasted space in modern UIs and particularly web pages/apps. Old school devs with experience designing UIs that spans decades design and build very different UIs than newer devs who think in terms of UI/UX. There is currently a mix of both in the industry so who is in charge of an application/game UI probably determines how it turns out and what is prioritized.
@@Me__Myself__and__I yea ive noticed that trend and i hate it. im very particular about practicality and user experience, and it seems to me its really gone downhill in the last couple decades, its been sad to watch.
its not just games, but everything. like you pointed out, webpages are a huge area, but programs, PC operating systems, and especially phone apps/OSs have also been greatly affected.
gone are the days when you can just pick something up and fiddle with it a few minutes to find where everything is
@@Anubis1101 Oh and that reminds me. It used to be a big deal to support multiple ways of accessing functionality (menus, function keys, tool bars, etc) because,it was understood that different people use apps in different ways. But this is la4gely gone now, its quite common to force users to conform to the app instead of the app being configurable to the user's preferences. I think some of this is driven by Apple who have always been pretty bad about such things but somehow they are seen as UI thought leaders in recent years.
@@Me__Myself__and__I a great example I remembered is PlayStation.
They invented the XMB for the PSP and PS3, which was so intuitive, you could sit someone down who'd never touched a console before, and they'd get the hang of the interface in a few minutes.
Fast forward to the PS5, and it's so obfuscated, with layers of inconsistent and arbitrary menus clogging up the experience, as well as a bunch of hidden or missing features and settings. To see them fall so far... It's depressing.
@@Anubis1101 I haven't seen the PS5 but that sounds terrible and, sadly, matching expectations. Windows is a great example. Back in the days of Windows 95 Microsoft wrote good general GUI requirements that any software wanting to display the W95 compatible logo had to meet. They were good guidelines and thus Windows apps were consistent. Now they ignore those rules and do stupid stuff like the Windows 10/11 GUI. It was so bad at one point even experienced Windows users could not find the start button to navigate a new install. The only way I consider it usable is to install software that restores much of the Windows 7 GUI (which was the last good one). GUI design is unfunctional garbage these days.
Hi Tim, What are your thoughts on visual scripting in engines and do you think it could a viable alternative to learning how to write code for someone who's interested in the design aspect of games and wants to make presentable demos and short games for his resume and to grow as a designer? I know of a solo dev who made a game that is somewhat mechanically complex (it's a 3D platformer) and he "didn't write a single line of code" (his words) and used Unreal's blueprints. The game is Pumpkin Jack, in case you want to look it up.
Not Tim but have some personal experience that you may find interesting. In the studios I've worked in, designers are expected to implement their ideas via visual scripting (with the support of engineers). So yeah, definitely worth doing to practice and create a portfolio as that's exactly what you'd be doing at most studios.
Worth mentioning that learning to code will still help you achieve your goals. Designers who have stronger coding backgrounds are highly appreciate by programmers as they are less likely to cause headaches like implementing something in a non-performant way. Maybe something to consider doing on the backburner.
I see, thanks.
Wonderful video. Could the management issue be related to the increased corporatization of the games industry?
Bc people who want to be managers who should not be managers sounds exactly like what has happened to UPS since 2010 and the vast shift in corporate culture that happened around then.
"The ones most deserving to lead are the ones who don't want to" is a phrase that pops up throughout history in one form or other.
Such is the way of things.
Hey man, loving the videos so far but I have to say I laughed when you said the job of a junior is to learn how to write and debug your own code. These days if you want to land a job you have to already be as experienced/ skilled as a senior when you're only applying for entry level expecting to learn on the job further. The risk and time expense for a company to decide to put into you to learn on the job and become skilled for them is so high that I'm discovering that they'd rather not employ anybody and just outsource to contractors or small third party studios all over the world.
But then they're still hiring juniors, they're just outsourcing the risk. A lot of those offshore contractors & support-studios hire folks with questionable code, or just lack the direct-project experience that in-house devs would. So instead the company hires senior/lead programmers to "oversee" the code submitted by the contractors. Same effect as having in-house juniors, except that they never skill-up to full productivity (not for you anyway), and they don't get job benefits.
"My experience is that good managers are becoming rarer, harder to find, or unwilling to step into management roles."
Anyone know whether this is particularly a programmer thing vs a wider industry thing?
the iron law of oligarchy
Quick question, why are there wolves in fallout 1 and 2? in reality the grey wolf has long been driven out of California completely.
life, uh... finds a way!
@@MeisVlk true.... I guess hundreds of years of societal collapse can make animal migration alot easier.
@@DJSTRANGLER Yes. Also, it was a jurassic park reference :D (i'm old)
Since you’re an old school C developer, what is your opinion of the programming language Rust? Have you ever tried to learn it?
Are junior programming roles common in the game industry? Would you be able to expect to start as a junior and then go to staff or is it more common to have to get enough experience independently to make the staff programming position right away?
I understand in a perfect world that most people would start as a junior and gain the experience to make staff programmer on the job, but I’ve heard in many other tech based industries that entry level positions are hard to come by.
They aren't very common at the moment. If you are attending college, there are still a fair amount of internships to get your foot in the door. However, currently the industry is contracting and most studios are looking to higher mid to senior level people. This will change when the industry starts to expand again and more junior roles will pop up. It's an unfortunate cycle.
Weird that Staff is below Senior in the games industry. It’s above senior in my industry.
I think the manager thinks is true for most fields, not just game development.
"Hope you get an insight into how the games are made" - true, but also how the games are not made. How many top-tier projects fumbled due to mismanagement? And no that's not because the management was bad, that's because the entire system of even having a hierarchy was bad. These bad systems keep producing bad results - both internally (people leave the company and say they hated working there) and externally (the product flops).
Tim, I've heard people on Twitter say things like, "There's no such thing as a Junior Programmer position." or "The Junior Programmer title is just an excuse to under-pay programmers". I come from a retail background, where staff is purposely kept at an inefficient level to save money, so those statements make sense to me. However, what you just said also makes sense to me. Do you take those Twitter comments to be incendiary and/or unrealistic? Or would you say there's some truth to them?
im but a junior designer, but i dont want to be lead honestly. i suck at managing people. and i hate it. i want to design. that is what i enjoy.
Im entering the indie game dev world. I know im way ahead of myself but i keep wondering if i could only hire 1 person, what position should that fill. Whats your position on that?
A friend of mine who has been in the industry for a while, has often had to work with leads or seniors that seem to be ego-driven narcissists. Their manegerial skills have as a result been awful and the workplace as a whole has been horrible to work at.
Usually these types of managers have been protected by producers or other higher-ups, as well, so no amount of criticism or feedback from developers have lead to any kind of improvements. On the contrary, people who speak up, no matter how constructive and cordial, have often been fired or kicked off a project as a result.
Tim, what would you suggest if budding developers find themselves in similar situations as this? It kind of feels hopeless, as you need those game credits and referrals to be able to get anywhere in the industry.
I think you just described Tim's time at Carbine lol
This has always been the case, I remember similar situations from the 90s. If you have to report to such a person get yourself transferred or find a new job. Or if your the type just be quiet and fall in line. I can never do that personally, I refuse to put up with bad behavior and especially 8f they are also wrong/not good at coding. So I found a new job the few times I was in such a situation. Office politics, nepotism, 8ncompetant higher managers, etc. can result in this. Fighting it almost never works, if the company/division was interested in meritocracy such cases would be very rare and would get sorted out. But if its prevalent or the person has been in the role quite awhile they are likely protected and not going anywhere (at least easily). I have in fact gotten several such individuals fired over my career, but it has also cost me my job there every time. Usually I lose mine because said person is protected, but then on the way out I give the proper people detailed info about the situation that leads them to look into it and then that manager/s3nior gets let go a few weeks or months later. I'm fine with this personally, I don't have trouble finding jobs and I refuse to work for people who are truly incompetent or hostile/machivellian. But few people are willing to stand up if it puts their job on the line. So for most people, keep your mouth shut and change positions.
Perhaps people are not going into lead roles anymore for similar reasons to why you stopped doing it as well.
Your thumbnail looks like you're in the video for Bohemian Rhapsody.
The thumbnail looks like skeletron from terraria :)
I'm a little confused on "the industry is not there to teach you how to code". I mean obviously your job shouldn't be teaching the basics but I was under the impression that industry coding is much different than the small things you do at school.
Hey everyone look its Tim.
Can we all take a minute to appreciate how well groomed Tim always is? Makes me self conscious about me biting my nails LOL. Serious talk, the part about managers... so spot on.
What are your thoughts on holacracy, or the management-free development, in gamedev? It's ostensibly the model adopted by Valve, though it's obviously a special case. What kind of projects or teams can it work for? Would it stand up to its purported benefits, such as unleashing creativity, better efficiency and increased sense of ownership for the developers? How would it impact the hiring practice? What about things like crunch?
Thank you for your videos.
Does the lead programmer actually program? In my company they don't, they just send emails and delegate everything you said to other programmers. Maybe they should be called programmer leads instead.
The lead programmer should be the one doing all the merging and code reviews and be in charge of the main architecture and the core/critical/hardest parts of programming, what you are refering to is actually just a manager?
is there age restriction for entering the industry? Can someone be too old for this?
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
Code merit
There is a trend, particularly I noticed it in California, not to have "junior" developers. In other states juniors existed as a role, but in several years in CA no company I worked with had juniors. Oh, they DEFINITELY had them, but they were programmers not junior programmers and as a result there was no middle tier role effectively. This always seemed to be for reasons such as "no one likes to be referred to as junior/lesser". Sigh. I considered this very problematic because as explained very well in this video there is a sizable difference between junior, mid and senior roles. Note that this was not game development, just general software development.
That sounds like feeding the ego-trip of junior devs, fresh out of school. I've seen folks with no work exp aiming for senior dev roles - LOL no
@@mandisaw Seriously, no. A person would need at least like 10 years of work exp (school doesn't count) to even begin to think they might be senior. This trend of unexperienced newbs thinking they are all that is fairly recent.
@@Me__Myself__and__I Young people not knowing what they don't know, and being full of themselves is as old as human civilization 😅 At this point, I think it's an important maturity milestone when you realize you don't know shit, or at least not nearly as much as you *think* you know.
@@mandisaw But that isn't the case. They don't "find out" or admit they don't know. They double down, insist they are right and then play the victim card if necessary. That did not used to be the case in software dev. Not everyone, obviously. But enough to be problematic and lower software quality.
@@Me__Myself__and__IHmm, nah, we had them in the 90s & 00s too. It's just a human behavior flaw, or an unfortunate phase of development. Typically everyone just hits The Wall at some point, and be forced to either learn/grow, ask for help (mature), or accept defeat (remain stunted). Ideally, that point happens earlier in life, during HS/college, so you can "get the stupid knocked out" as my late hubby used to say.
I'm quite sure I said some idiotic shit as a teen/young adult, and then some kind person educated me, or I got that insight later on my own. Difference now is that many folks make it deep into their 20s (or 30s!) without course-correcting. Challenging, but not _new_ per se.
If you aren't willing to listen and compromise with your team members, you are going to have a bad time and they will have an even worse time.
By the way Tim, have you tried the fallout 1in2 mod before? I am currently playing it, it's cool!
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the current state of junior positions requiring 3-7 years of industry (sometimes more) experience with credits and for less than 21k a year
I feel like because the industry is maturing, the calibre of employees are increasing and hiring staff don't know how to account for that other than lowering wage and increasing requirements
For me, working in a different industry, I've been a senior and a manager and I very much dislike management
I want employees to do their best and help train and mentor them into achieving their full potential
I don't want to run interference to stop higher-ups demoralising my team, I don't do corporate politics well, and I don't want to meet firing quotas
A lot of people I know are like me and they dislike management in general because of what they represent, and often times as well that they don't care about being a good manager and are just seeking the next promotion
Based on the description of "can't blame junior, because it was decided on by senior" - I can see that gamedev is veeery far behind in software development methodologies, it still sounds like something out of 2005. In modern projects, nobody ever blames any single person, not only because teams discuss everything upfront, but also because there is code review and testing. Stuff simply doesn't slip into production environment unchecked. So, in a horizonal team, someone would do their best, and it's up to reviewers or discussion participants to offer an improvement. There is no blame, people simply don't think in those terms at all.
These videos keep getting darker
Winter is coming bro
😂 watching from my phone you look like a floating head and hands
Can we send fan mail? 🙂📪