You first programming job

My story.

I applied to a few jobs, got an offer on one finally then I took it. It was my 4th interview. It wasn't so bad now that I think of it. Found a great one for me doing web development in C# on .net. Learning any other programming stuff as I go along really. They're flexible and I learn very fast.

There are lots of things that might be holding you back, so its hard to be inspirational without more information on your situation and approach.

A few key questions:
How good of a programmer are you (honestly)?
What kind of problems/projects don't you like to work on?
What kind of problems/projects do you like to work on?
What are your weaknesses?
What are your strengths?

There are other factors, of course:
Is there enough opportunity at your level of experience in the geographic location you've been searching in?
Is there enough opportunity at your level of experience in the industry you've been searching in?

You might have to expand your search criteria. I have a degree in Real-Time Interactive Simulation from Digipen, and yet my first job was writing C# and AJAX for a Microsoft CRM customizer (which I ended up hating, and only lasted 6 months) and my current job is as a Technical Writer (and occasional programmer) for Windows Mobile at Microsoft (which I like a lot better.)

I'd love to tell you how hard I've searched for jobs, but I mostly let my resume do the talking and let them come to me... After school I posted my resume to craigslist and submitted it to a few local gaming companies directly. After that I played Halo 2 on XBL for a month taking occasional breaks to eat, sleep, do phone screens and go to occasional interviews. My only other piece of advice is to work with a recruiter or staffing agency (not a temp agency) who will also do a lot of work for you (which is how I got my Windows Mobile gig, twice.)

Let's see.

I didn't major in computer science, so that was a problem; and then I screwed around in college (too many games mostly) and didn't finish. Major problem.

-That lead to a year doing midnight phone monkey work for an ISP

which (along with some social networking)

-got me 3 year job doing general sysadmin work for a software company

which got bought out, but in my spare time I got enough knowledge to

-suffer through 3 years doing black box QA

which eventually drove me insane (but mildly well off) so I moved to buy a house and aim for that entry level dev position with ~8 years of personal learning under my belt.

That got me 15 months unemployed, and 30+ interviews before one of the recruiters found me a company whose standard operating procedure is to hire slightly suboptimal programmers (no degree, fresh graduate, fresh off 30 years with COBOL) at 75% market rates.

And here I am: learning a lot, getting fantastic reviews, and... making 25th percentile entry level developer salary while leading projects. (stay in school kids)


As with all job hunting, social networking is the most powerful tool you can use. Have friends? Other college grads? Ask 'em if their companies need more programmers (and can get you an interview). Beyond that, the key is getting past HR and getting an interview. For some, that means putting more on the resume. For some that means being vague so it's assumed you have something you might not (but in reality, anyone will pickup quickly).

I applied for, and got an interview with Microsoft for an intern position. They flew me out, I did the whole thing, and got an offer to join the team working on what eventually became Microsoft Surface. It was a pretty cool summer. As far as struggles, I don't always interview well. I tend to intuit my way to answers, and interviewers don't like it when you stare silently at a whiteboard for 30 seconds and then suddenly present a full answer, without any indication of how you got there.

I didn't want to go in game dev. because coding games what was I was doing at home for fun (Since age of 13) and didn't even imagine it was possible to make money out of a fun thing like that :)

This idea actually followed me until the age of 23 (yes, pathetic..) But at that moment I had almost 6 amateurs 3D engines under my belt.

Went to college in pure science. And screwed it up very good. Mostly because of chemical ....

Anyway, I worked for 6 months in a meat shop. At minimum salary.

Then, I found that school in Montreal giving the program: 3D game Programmer.
I took it, and did well in every courses, with notes average of 98% or so.

You can almost say it, I had more background that most of the teachers ;)

During my intership for Desgraff, I got an interview at GameLoft Montreal. I did very well at the test. Actually, too well, they thought I cheated... But got the job anyway. 1 week before finnishing my intership, and starting my new job, GameLoft closed some departments in the Montreal's studio, fired some people and cancelled mine :S... and the other 6 that was supposed to start in same time.

I stayed 6 months at home, kinda depressed. Doing nothing but coding. Then, with the help of a friend, we made a game called baboViolent 2.

Then got a job at bitheads (Ottawa) as a Virtools developper. After few months, I got a job offer for EA Vancouver. In which I would have played a big role.
But I refused... instead we sold bv2 to bitHeads, and proposed to make the third one. Which is now called Babo:Invasion, and my job is awesome, our engine kick ass, the pay is great, the team is great, and I really took the right decision for staying in Ottawa :)

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Sorry for the long (and bad english writing) post.
Bref, I don't think I had difficulties, because at home I was coding games, all the time, and got all my XP. I never got stressed about my competences in interviews, and I didn't really looked for job a lot. I'm a lazy person :P

[Edited by - Daivuk on June 14, 2008 9:15:36 AM]

Demos > C.V.

I showed my first employer a game I was working on. It was only half finished, but it left no doubt that I knew my arse from my elbow. This is almost never the case with a C.V.

If you can prove that you've got the goods, an employer doesn't need to worry about the degree to which you're fibbing on your resume.

How do these "tests" that employers give you (for a programming position) look? I am interested.

The tests i've done cover knowledge on the primary language of development (ie, C++ or whatever you are going to use) and also on the theory & technical aspects on the area you will be assigned to (in my case graphics theory, so i got questions about HDRI and parallax mapping)

Quote:

Original post by JerryM How do these "tests" that employers give you (for a programming position) look? I am interested.

Example.

Yea the gameloft one looked exactly like this.

And some logical questions (Puzzles).

Quote:

Original post by yaustar Quote: Original post by JerryM How do these "tests" that employers give you (for a programming position) look? I am interested. Example.

Thanks a lot!

I don't want to sidetrack this thread, but on that programming test..

Quote:

5. Given the inputs 1 and 0, write 4 different functions that will return the opposite number from the input given. int myFunc(int input x) { if(x == 0) return 1; else return 0; } Since if/else was used in the example, you cannot use it in your functions.

I'm stuck!

I can come up with 3 methods...

A switch block.
Subtract 1 from x and return it's absolute value.
Use a while loop i.e. while(x){ return 0;} return 1;

But that's all I've got. I think maybe some sort of bitwise operation might give you the fourth, but I'm not nearly strong enough with that stuff to give an example (this test has highlighted several areas in which i need to brush up!).

Quote:

Original post by Winegums I don't want to sidetrack this thread, but on that programming test.. Quote: 5. Given the inputs 1 and 0, write 4 different functions that will return the opposite number from the input given. int myFunc(int input x) { if(x == 0) return 1; else return 0; } Since if/else was used in the example, you cannot use it in your functions. I'm stuck! I can come up with 3 methods... A switch block. Subtract 1 from x and return it's absolute value. Use a while loop i.e. while(x){ return 0;} return 1; But that's all I've got. I think maybe some sort of bitwise operation might give you the fourth, but I'm not nearly strong enough with that stuff to give an example (this test has highlighted several areas in which i need to brush up!).

These are the ones that I came up with:
return (x == 0 ? 1 : 0);
return !((bool)( x ));
return (x + 1) - (x * 2);
return (x ^ 1);

My first job is the one I have now.

I am working as a game developer for a small game company. It is just me and one other guy that is doing programming, and I am basically teaching the other guy. But its a sweet deal for me, as Im just done with first year of university and my other summer job option was working in a supermarket.

Btw, from the test: how do the cross product of two vectors relate to the areal of a triangle?

Quote:

Original post by h3ro Btw, from the test: how do the cross product of two vectors relate to the areal of a triangle?

The size of the vector resulted by the cross-product of two edges of a triangle is the area of the parralelogram. Divide by two and you have the area of the triangle.

I've actually had it pretty easy compared to most. I got a web development job while going to a local university. A small (like, 3-4 people type small) company that did most of their business through internet sales was looking for a web developer who knew PHP. I sent them a resume with a link to my personal (PHP coded) site attached and they called me in for an interview the next day.

I stayed with them for just under 2 years, at which point the company kinda outgrew me. A lone 20 year old coder wasn't really enough to give them support and development on the level they needed, so I was let go. :( It was kinda sad and frustrating for me, but it also gave me a chance to start really digging for jobs in the arena that I wanted (which was NOT web development!)

I sent out tons of resumes, and only heard back from two of the companies. The one I ended up going with I found through Monster.com (yes, it works) and was a not-quite-so-small (15-20 people at the time) company doing public safety software. It's a great place to work, and I'm happy as a clam to be doing what I do!

What got me hired there was pretty simple:

1) I was able to list 2 years of professional dev experience with my previous job. Even though they weren't a web development house, the fact that I had that experience mattered.

2) I showed them examples of my non-web related hobby work, so they could get a feel for how I code. When you do this, be sure to follow a couple of rules:
* Only show what you feel is your best work, and the most indicative of how you code NOW.
* Only show work that you worked on exclusively. Showing code that you did with your friends is a bad idea, because it leaves questions about who did what.
* Make sure you can explain why you did things the way you did. "I copy pasted that code chunk, and poked it until it worked" is not going to get you brownie points.

3) I was HONEST with them. If they asked me something I didn't know, I told them either: "I don't know" or "I haven't had any experience with that, but here's where I would start looking..." Give whatever knowledge you have about a subject, but don't be afraid to admit if you haven't been there/done that.

4) In conjunction with the above point, when you get asked something outside your area of expertise you DON'T want to outright reject it. It's a really bad idea to say "Oh, I don't do networking. I'm a GUI man." Most companies are looking for people who are willing to learn new skills. If you haven't worked in a particular area, at the very least indicate that you wouldn't mind learning!

What kind of sample code or example projects have you guys stuck on your resume? I'm not a very creative guy (when it comes to games, but I am creative when it comes to solving problems) but I can program. I'd like some ideas of things I can make to stick on my resume.

When I graduated in May 2007 I started looking for game programming jobs. I had a couple interviews that didn't work out, and I didn't really want to move halfway across the country, so I decided to look for work locally.

Within a month I found my current job as a programmer for Astronautics Corperation of America, where I work on Airbus A400M software. After taking many programming tests for the game jobs, I expected a difficult interview, but the phone interview lasted about all of 15 minutes without needing a programming test, I got a call a few hours later with a job offer, and I started the following Monday.

Funny how things work out sometimes. I had only a mild interest in airplane software when I applied, but the longer I work there, the less interested I am in games. The pay is definately better anyways. It's a cool feeling knowing that your softare has a liftetime of 30 years, instead of a shelf life of about a year.

I still keep my eye on the occasional game dev jobs that open up in the area though.