Swap to Game Dev?
That's the dream. But I'm in my mid 30s, wife, kid, mortgage, etc. 150k tc currently, 130k as salary and stable. I've been doing some indie work in unity to learn, my art sucks but game mechanics are solid. Anyone swap industrial, and how'd that go?
Me and my whole team has. But we build a web based game, so all Typescript, node and react. Pay is lower, but the problems are way more interesting and satisfying
Awesome, I have wanted to do something similar. Are you using an engine/library? Also how did you meet likeminded people?
Oh, I was hired into the company then scaled the engineering team up from myself and an engineer. Work with Indies is a great resource for finding paid gigs in indie development — we advertise there often. As for the tech, it is all proprietary.
130k as an engineer in games isn't hard to beat if you can get in at a decent company. Switch.
^^^^ Any AAA or well funded indie can beat that if you’re competent enough.
Switch for way worse WLB and stress? With kids? That makes 0 sense to me.
Tricky to compare comp since you didn't mention location but if that's 150k in hcol, then entry level offers from Xbox and EA can definitely beat that. Some Sony studios too. Hardest part will be getting the interview itself. Work on tons of side projects to build up your resume.
Doesn't hurt to start looking around and interviewing. The time is now.
Game dev could be fun but 1) if indie then you get fun but in general lose money, or 2) if industry than not that fun. I guess best course is keep job but build games when free.
Depends, do you want money or to wake up most days enjoying what you do for work.
Being a game dev doesn’t necessarily mean less money. I swapped from working in big tech to game dev and my salary is higher than when i was in big tech. Besides theres always the option to switch to a different industry if OP ends up not liking it or wants to chase new opportunities.