Who? What? Me?

1. I typically arrive at work around 7:30am and leave around 6pm. There are exceptions, like tonight where it is 10:15pm and I am making a build of our game for QA to test overnight. Yes, we have a night shift QA as well as a day shift.

2. Game Developer magazine does annual game developer salary surveys. I'm in Australia, and our pay rates probably would not be comparable to other countries like the US or UK. Cost of living is a huge difference.

3. I started in the company when there were 30 people. With a company that size, it was a lot easier to get yourself seen and acknowledged. The company is now well over 350 people, so standing out in the crowd is more difficult. I was promoted to lead programmer within a year of joining. People who join the company now will have a longer wait to get to this position, if they ever do.

4. I wasted my time at university. I spent all that time trying to make my own games. My university years never had any bearing on jobs that I got. I even got jobs over university graduates because I had taught myself how to do the job, whereas the graduates knew the theory, but had not done the practical side of it. I got into the games industry purely by chance. I didn't know that there were several games studios in my city, but I happened to notice a poster for an animation seminar that had a talk by the directors of a local games studio. I went along to see what they had to say, and introduced myself to them afterwards. They just happened to be looking for a programmer at that time.

5. Make small demos or games for a portfolio. We look at portfolios rather than university degrees.

6. A small company has its advantages, but it is not as secure as a job at a larger company. Many small companies fail in this industry.

7. My job title is lead programmer, but I also look after localisation, making builds of the games, data conversion processes, interviewing job seekers, performance reviews on staff, project schedules, task management, etc. Somewhere in there, I do a bit of programming. The general rule is that the higher up you go, the less programming you do. Which is kind of ironic, because the better programmers get promoted to positions where they generally do less programming.

8. I've worked for one company for the last seven years. The industry average is 2.5 years at one company, but I think that average mainly comes from the US and UK. In Australia, the average stay at a job is longer than that. A lot of our staff have been here at least six years.

9. Seeing the end result. Seeing other people play the game that you have put so much effort into. Seeing those people enjoy the game. Also, writing a bit of code that does its job and does it well. That's a bit of self satisfaction.

10. What do you enjoy doing? That's the real question. Do you enjoy programming? Then do that. You could also do animation, modelling, texturing, design, sound, music, cutscenes, to name a few different areas.

Hope that helps.