EPIC Games hiring freeze.. offering Independent contractor instead
Hi all, Seems like Epic is in a bit of a hiring freeze. Had 4 round of interviews that went well followed by radio silence for a few weeks. Was informed that position to be filled was on hold for moment. A couple weeks later, asked if I was interested in the position if it was independent contractor. Any tips how to negotiate this? I know a big portion of TC is based on discretionary bonus and stock options. Please let me know your thoughts #gaming
No idea on TC, but you should see if you would get bonuses based on your level. I've learned total annual bonuses range from 10% to over 100% of base comp, depending on level and role.
Thanks for the reply! I’ve heard similar for an employee. I think that would have been the case but now they are offering only independent contractor position so IMO I doubt I would be eligible for bonuses as I wouldn’t be considered an employee. Essentially that would just need to be built into my original contract but kinda tricky because the bonus is discretionary. Would to hear any more thoughts you have. Thanks
Bonus quarterly for FT will be approximately 10-13% of annual base. Totaling 40-50% of annual base annually. I am on fortnite non engineering so take that as you will. You can get almost double the base of epic at indie startups, but the bonuses here plus the insane medical and 401k contributions more than make up for it. 401k employer contributions are in the 30k+ range a year. I am easily stacking away 50k+/year in my 401k at epic which is insanity and unheard of in almost any industry.
Epic Games pays the highest out of any game studio (esp for engineering) and honestly theyre a good bet. The biggest annoyance with IC is taxes/etc but you can basically write off anything related to your workstation, internet, phone, rent, electric, etc so I like it.
Can someone from Epic confirm the freeze? Any word on possible layoffs? I’m due to start a full time job there soon, so I want to know if I should start looking again…
Epic used to have "open" hiring with almost no constraints. As of last month we have much more restricted hiring, only for preapproved roles. I heard its to slow down growth as Epic is above 4000 employees and someone decided we were growing too fast. My manager told me its to protect our bonuses.
Thanks, that makes me feel a little better. I do remember a lot of talk during my interviews about the very fast growth.
Yeah, maybe if we hired more devs and less middle management we could get more done. My team needs more devs considering the backlog of items we have for our product.
Contractors are first to be cut. Unless you’re jobless, pretty risky
Definite some risk going from FT employee currently but TC package seems very generous and I like the role. I’m finding it hard to understand how much more to ask for based on what we spoke about what my base would as an employee. They said the pay would be higher for IC but not sure what to expect and if it would be higher after employee bonuses or if just higher than base…any ideas?
Contractors get paid more cash than a regular IC role because they don’t have any benefits and some companies treat them as second class citizens Benefit packages typically are worth anywhere between 5-15k. If they have a bonus or equity program, you can’t partake. If they have company wide events, you’re probably not invited