Career path as a Gameplay Engineer
Recently received an offer from Riot Games. I wonder what the typical career path of a Gameplay Engineer should be like, and what other companies I could jump to after some years of experience at Riot. My understanding is that gameplay engineer is more stable with a lower pay compared with other types of tech directions (AI, backend, etc), but not sure. I would appreciate any insights from you guys. Some additional info about myself: YOE: 3. Been working as a software engineer on an in-house project (mostly game tools). Master’s degree with a focus on Computer Graphics. #riotgames #epicgames #amazon #google
Not sure about more stable. Games industry has layoffs all the time. Lower pay for sure. It’s a role to take if you’re passionate about games and your wife works at Apple bringing in the big $$$
Lol! Is it possible for a game dev to jump to Meta? I saw a lot of graphics related positions on Meta’s website. (Though it was one or two years ago, not sure if it’s the case after the layoffs…)
Reality Labs have a lot of game tech positions. Not much hiring going on at the moment though.
Gameplay isn’t a dead end, as you can become tech lead, just like any other role. You get good exposure to other systems like animation, physics, networking, and can readily expand your skillsets
Cool!!! I have a lot of experience in rendering and physics, but very little in Gameplay, that’s a major reason I consider jumping onto the bandwagon.
Not a dead end. Riot has levels like any other company you can climb, and I know someone who went from game company to fang back to game company over several years
Yeah, I went from games to Meta and now Snap. OP is asking a bit about being a gameplay engineer. I would recommend against doing gameplay long-term just because it’s easy to stagnate on transferable skills. Typically for gameplay you’re using proprietary tools/scripting languages to make things happen. But it’s fun to do for a little while, then find some different specialized areas so you don’t get stuck. I did it for a bit too long.
Thank you guys! Really appreciate your encouragement! Btw, I wanna ask Haunted, what were/are you doing at Meta and Snap? Did you find some role in which you can apply a bit your gameplay dev experience or you just pivot to another domain like backend?
I feel like it’s a bit of a dead-end. You could eventually manage, but the IC track will be sort of capped. It’s definitely fun, but make sure you’re getting some backend experience or some sort of transferable skills at the same time.
Ya, I totally understand, currently I lack of backend experience, that makes me a bit awkward in job market. But I feel like backend experience is not as important in game industry and may not be transferable to tech companies like FAANG (cuz I heard backend in game is much simpler and not very challenging)… Management track is good. How do you think about switching to game engine development?