Would love to hear from current eng employees how WLB and culture is on a Zynga games development team. I have an offer from them, very much considering it but it's a pay cut. TC: too high
Why on earth would you even consider taking a pay cut and quitting at GOOGLE to work for freaking Zynga?
Always been interested in game dev. This seems like a great way to get in?
Zynga isn’t a real game dev company. It’s a revenue first company, PMs run the show, not engineers. Its prime days are also over long ago. If you plan on getting into game dev, there are far better alternatives around. Unity, Roblox, Rockstar(if you are willing to take a pay cut), Sony Santa Monica, Tencent, Visual Concepts(they are hiring extensively for a new project right now). Most game companies are hiring like crazy at the moment, since acquisitions are looming, and they want to secure talent
Also they are being acquired right now. So anything that is true about their culture now, might not be tomorrow (the acquisition goes through end of February)
Great culture and WLB for me, been here two years and love it. It may get a little chaotic when an inexperienced PM plans the project you are working on but you just have to manage them a little bit to steer it in the right direction. I've been at other game companies for 12 years and this is by far the best. Let's hope it stays that way after the TTWO acquisition. PM me if you want more retails
Can you share your role? Is it Engineering or in Analytics?
I'm in engineering
@OP, which team is this for? It’s not worth the large paycut IMO. If you want to try game dev, try Roblox for sure. Small company perks and you’ll probably get a huge TC jump. Most mobile game companies are just crunching the numbers to make it work. It is pretty fun to work in games, no doubt. But really depends on your team / org. And eventually burnout + low comp gets to you. It mayyyyyy be worth it post acquisition and once offices are back, imo it’s a no for now.
It's for the WWF unity team.
I don’t know a ton about that specific team. But think about it, 10 yr old product, Is it really “game dev”? Why not go to sledgehammer to make call of duty? Or EA, though the only PC title in Redwood City is the sims I think. And Roblox etc that I already mentioned. In the end, it’s your call but I would think a lot about lower comp and what “gamedev” really means. The most fun I’ve ever had was on a AAA game studio, mobile is just ship ship ship.
TC or ..
Current TC is well above 400k