Asking for personal advice about my near future

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Hello,

I’m writing this message so I could get advice on what I should do in the next five months (or so).

Right now, I live in Israel, and I couldn’t really find a job regarding game dev here, but I’ll be soon moving to Sweden for personal reasons- which will 5 months from now. Once there, I hope to land a job as a Unity Developer.

A bit about myself: I’ve been using Unity for more than 2 years now, I have plenty of experience making prototypes, and I have a few projects to show for under my belt:
About 7 games that I made as a part of a “one game a week” challenge, a Ludum Dare project that I made with a couple of friends, and one “big”, finished (- but still needs a few UI fixes, and maybe a better art style, also unpublished) project.

I currently have a day job so I could finance part of my living there, and I also have figured out a housing solution-
so I don’t have to worry about those things at the moment.

So, my question to you now is- what do you think I should work on in the next 5 months,
in order to impress my future interviewer?

Should I make a ton of “one game a week” tiny projects? even if they aren’t completely polished?
Or should I work on a medium-ish project for the next 5 months?

And if so, what should I focus on? in which aspects do you think it should be unique?
Should it be an impactful experience, or just really fun?
How long should that demo / game be?
Should I focus on my strengths, try a whole lot of new things, or learn new things and improve my weaknesses?

Also, any other tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for responding and/or reading this!
David

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Some random thoughts from someone not actually in the industry.

It’s not what you know, it’s who. Turn up the networking now. Get involved in Sweden’s game dev scene. Join the relevant Facebook groups. Don’t ask for a job yet, just ask about the state of the local industry. Figure out who has projects going on. Figure out what type of games are being built.

On your portfolio, the big focus should be publishing something. Preferably pick a platform that is big in Sweden, see above. But getting a project published is important. Employers appreciate a dev who hav an understanding of the full project process. There is a surprising amount of work that goes on after a game is finished.

You probably don’t need any more projects. A few really good games is better then a dozen half finished prototypes.

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+1

If there is still room for improvement on your swedish language skills, I’d work on that. You can combine that with getting to know people in the swedish dev scene. Join swedish chats, forums, facebook groups etc… Also don’t just focus on games in the most narrow sense, I hear e-learning is a good (better?) field to work in too.

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Aside from getting to know lots of people, I’d have to guess that a complete and polished small game is going to be worth a lot more than a lot of half-finished projects. Everyone has half-finished projects, but very few people have finished a game. It’ll prove that you understand how the overall product works, which is worth a lot in any job.

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Well that’s an easy question - if you will be moving to Sweden in 5 months and know it, then you already have proper permission from the proper governments in Sweden and that makes the getting a job as a Unity developer in Sweden simple - you are either qualified and they need a developer or that is not the case.

5 months is a short time so you should be visiting IT outsourcing agencies and the gaming and other businesses directly on their sites, in the .se domain and apply. It will help if you know Swedish. That is how I got a job overseas, but it usually requires that there be some sort of work force shortage of labor that is not being met by the native population. That is where your prior permission to reside in Sweden helps you as the employer must not make a case to the government as to why they must hire someone that is living in a foreign country.

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First of all, thanks a lot for answering, everybody! I greatly appreciate it.

All of your comments so far have been really helpful- this is my first time actually posting a thread here, and I’m definitely glad I did :slight_smile:
Basically, what I’ve gathered this far is that I need to get to know a lot of people, do my research, get better at Swedish, while finishing up my unfinished project and publishing it, and developing a new project once I’m done with that.

Sounds like a lot of work, but it also sounds like a ton of fun, to be honest. I’m really looking forward to see how it goes, and managing my time for this!

If anybody has any more thoughts, tips or opinions, then please post them here or contact me-

Thanks again-!
David

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Yeah, I’d be working on language and general employability on one hand, and getting that project published on the other.

Almost anyone can show a bunch of stuff they never finished. Demonstrating an ability to get stuff done and delivered to an audience or a client is gold.

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What exactly is a Unity developer? Is that a coder/programmer?
From my experience as a professional artist since late 90s, people hire the best in the field they are in need of.
What that means is generalists portfolios don’t hold a candle to someone who is a specialist in the specific subject the job application is needing. i.e. A ton of generalist artists will apply to specific 3D character artist positions, but the 3-5 finalists that will get a first and second interview are specialists in 3D character modeling. These specialists focus exclusively on character modeling. They don’t hardly ever work on animation, texturing, rigging, or other elements of 3D content creation. They could most likely do those things, but that takes away from there focus on character modeling.

Of course there are a few positions available where teams are looking to bring on a generalist person who can do multiple things relatively well, but those are fewer in number than the specialist positions.

As a “Unity developer” will you be specialized in anything, or are you a generalist? You might consider honing your portfolio to point out your strengths rather than trying to improve your weaknesses, if you are going to be applying to specialist positions.
On the other hand - if you are looking to fill a generalist (jack of all, master of none) positions you might consider improving on some of your weak points while keeping abreast in the areas that you feel are your strengths.

Lastly - I’d hire a person who has one extremely polished work that is tight and impressive over all others who have numerous semi-alright looking pieces.

Though - this is coming from an artist, the technical programmer “Unity developer” realm might be different from my view.

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To me that term makes it sound like someone who lacks experience outside of the Unity environment. A good programmer/artist/designer shouldn’t be limited to one engine, and rightly or wrongly that term starts me wondering how much of their “knowledge” is regurgitating tutorials. To be fair everyone starts somewhere, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it certainly doesn’t mean they can’t do things.

To my point, though, if someone is good in their area - be it programming, art, design, or something else - then I’d expect them to represent them selves as a programmer/artist/designer/something else “with a high level of experience in the Unity engine”. That is, the skill comes first rather than the tool.

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The term Unity Developer normally means a coder. It implies a high degree of familiarity with the Unity environment. Its a fairly common term in job advertisements, so I have no real problem using it. I would expect a Unity Developer to have the following skills

  • High degree of familiarity with the Unity engine
  • General game play programming with C#
  • General editor tool programming
  • All of the editor tools, like meccanim, shuriken and UI. As well as their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Familiar with the peculiarities of all of the major platforms

Put simply a Unity Developer is someone who can take a given set of assets and a game design and produce a compiled binary appropriate for a given platform.

This is different from a programmer (although these definitions are no means exclusive). I would expect something like this:

  • Fluent in multiple programming languages, including C++, C#, PHP, JavaScript ect
  • Familiar with various design patterns, and when to use them

I wouldn’t expect a programmer to be familiar with meccanmin, but I would expect them to be able to pick it up if needed.

In practice developer and programmer tend to be used interchangeably.

Probably true. I call myself a Unity Developer, and only have limited experience in environments outside of Unity. I suppose I could call myself a database developer/administrator too if I wanted.

While experience outside of Unity is good. I’m not sure its strictly needed. Pretty much all game development is done in Unity anyway. And there seem to be plenty of advertised roles specifically for Unity Developers. If advertisers are going to call out Unity experience directly in the job title, what’s wrong with calling out Unity experience in how you describe yourself?

Disclaimer: I’m just a hobbyist. I don’t actually work as a programmer or Unity Developer. This post could be completely off base.

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You’re definitely right that there’s a marketing aspect to it. If people who are hiring are looking for a “Unity developer” then matching that expectation could be a good idea.

That said…

Most of my experience in the last ~8 years has been in Unity. That said, when I’m solving problems I don’t think in terms of Unity. I think in terms of computers and how they can be applied to create solutions. Unity, or whatever tool happens to be in use, then fills as much or as little of the solution I come up with as is appropriate.

When I work with people to do something I want people who can solve problems. Picking up a new tool definitely has an overhead, but if you’re a problem solver it won’t be a big deal. On the flip side, if you know a tool but can’t solve problems… you’re of quite limited use.

To be clear, “experience outside of Unity” isn’t how you learn to solve problems. And I know there are plenty of people who are great at that and, like me, happen to have predominantly worked in Unity. My point is that if I’m hiring you as a “game programmer” then I want you to have reasonable game programming skills and a good fundamental understanding of how games work. If what you really know is how to follow other peoples’ instructions using a particular tool set then in a large production I still may have a role for you, but it’s not going to be as a fully fledged “game programmer”.

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You could make plans for a project that takes one month to complete, rather than 5 months. Or maybe 2.5 months? I would go for the bigger project rather than the really small one. This is only a personal preference.

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I don’t disagree with you there. Problem solving and generally getting things done is far more important then learning a specific tool set. Otherwise a chemical engineer would have no chance.

But I don’t see any real harm in advertising oneself as “really good at solving problems with this specific toolset”. Especially if that’s the tool set you want to work with.

And like all job searches, if the strategy doesn’t work, then it can be changed.

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If that’s what the people offering the work want/need to hear then yes, it’s the right way to do it. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t/didn’t look for team members that way, and that if you were looking for a job from me (in particular) using that term may well be a turn off. I’m certainly not representative of everyone, though.

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