Cloud Developer/Architect

You could possibly get some unpaid game credentials by offering your services to some hobby projects in our Hobby Project Classifieds. And you should bookmark https://www.creativeheads.net/​ and set up a LinkedIn presence. We have a Portfolios section here. Subscribe to gamesindustry.biz. If you want to take courses, go ahead and take any courses you think would be interesting. Don't give up your day job in the meantime.

@Tom Sloper Hey Tom, I appreciate the answer. I will definitely take a look at the hobby projects and I hope that there are people needing something regarding cloud. About my linkedin, this is my current profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/fcarvalhodev/,​ but no mention of games yet. I’m going to start something, thank you for the insights!​

fcarvalllhodev said:
the thing is, how can I join the Gaming area being a Solution Architect ?

What does a Solution Architect do? It's not a title I've ever seen in games, or even in smaller tech companies.

@Kylotan Hello, so I'm usually responsible to take care of a cloud environment. Like, if you want to have an application hosted in some cloud, you usually ask the architect to do it. I would say that the game industry probably has another name for it. But it’s this, someone that goes to the software/game/application that needs to have some integration with third-party libraries, clients, ci/cd pipelines, cloud like Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud or AWS, this all falls under the architect wing.

An example: I did a game once that was responsible for collecting user data for example, and this data was hosted on a database in Azure.

Okay, cool. In my experience that's not often a dedicated role that exists in game development companies I've worked at. I'm not saying this stuff never happens - obviously some stuff does get cloud-hosted - but it's a rare enough occurrence that the mission critical stuff is often outsourced to external experts and the other stuff would often fall under the wider mandate of a lead developer or a technical director, or a senior developer tasked primarily with server work and dev-ops more generally.

There's also the issue that a lot of traditional cloud hosting is focused on throughput and not latency, which sometimes is not good enough for game servers - hence, a lot of game servers are still on quite traditional VPS arrangements or even dedicated hardware.

So I would guess there are 3 potential routes here:

1. Work for these cloud-providers who have game-focused offerings - MS, AWS, etc. This might not be ‘game oriented’ enough for you, though.
2. Apply to the big games technology companies who have SaaS offerings to other developers - Epic, Unity, maybe 1 or 2 more.
3. Apply direct to larger game developers, especially those with multiple studios, but with the expectation of needing to highlight more than just ‘cloud’ - being able to write backend services is likely to be very useful.

@Kylotan Thank you for the inputs. The item number 2 is actually what I'm trying to do right now. But I don't know what is wrong with my resume or profile but it doesn't seem attractive enough for Epic games for example. Is the same resume that I use and I was called by Google/MS/Amazon, etc. Anyway, I think that is why I do not have experience with games and I’m also living in Brazil. But, who knows, right ?

Anyway, I want to get attractive enough to at least have an interview opportunity hahaha

Are you applying for a specific role, or just sending your resume? It's not necessarily about an objectively ‘good’ resume, but about whether you're a good fit for what's needed. It sounds like a lot of what you do is simply not something that there's a massive demand for in games. Your LinkedIn suggests that you do have relevant skills but they're less on the ‘cloud’ and ‘architect’ side and more on the ‘server backend’ side. There's a lot more work doing basic REST APIs for services than in “managing cloud environments”.

You live in Brazil, so you need to apply to companies with a strong development operation in Brazil. Location, location, location.

Maybe I’m having the wrong impression, but I was thinking that the game industry was more open like the tech industry ? I mean, I do work from Brazil for companies in the UK, US, MY and India. Is that a bad assumption when we talk about the Game Industry ?

When news agencies are constantly reporting stories about “that amazing Cloud Guy in Brazil,” you can work from Brazil for all kinds of game companies around the world. Game companies hire consultants all the time, when they're recognized for their accomplishments in the game world. So become accomplished in the game world first, and you can work as a remote consultant. That's the reality. Also note that somebody already had to ask for an explanation of what you do…

Yes, that makes sense. I had to do this as a Software Developer and things just got easier after I spent some time working on Thoughtworks as also an international initiative for green softwares development https://greensoftware.foundation/. So, I will probably try to be around this platform and try to participate in the projects and start to build my portfolio and stuff showing what I do. ?

Thank you both guys, I really appreciate the help and the guidance!