Does anyone here program for a living?

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sinisterstuf

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 18:20

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I'm still in school and people keep telling me to think about what I want to do when I'm done with my studies. I have alsways wanted to be a programmer but I'm not sure if I can and what possibilities there are.

If there's anyone here who programs for a living then I'm just wondering what it's like, what kind of stuff you have to do, wether or not you get paid well and what kind of jobs are available for programmers.

You know, because I thought that maybe if I wanted to know more about it I should ask a programmer and on TGC forums there are... Programmers. So I was hoping someone could inform me about this a bit.

Thank you in advance
sinisterstuf

No, contrary to popular belief my name is not actually 'Sinister Stuff' but 'sinisterstuf', a misspelling resulting from the latter having too many characters with no spaces in between

oh well

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Van B

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 18:51

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It depends really on what interests you. A large part of my job is developing database systems, but the rewards come from saving the company time and money so you have to pick your battles so to speak. Often a in-house application will have to compete with a commercial application, so there is always an opportunity to make yourself shine but it takes a lot of work.

Job security can often be the holy grail in all types of programming careers, but being stubborn and productive at the same time can help. It's not often you hear IT being praised so good communication skills are vital if you want to be something more than the office code-monkey. I don't think it's a good idea to go from college/uni straight onto a programming career, more general business experience can really help. Personally I'd rather work alone for a smaller company, much better job security and prospects - the more people around and above you, the harder it is to be recognized. In saying that though, I've had 2 days holiday this year and can't take any more until September - if holidays are your bag, then maybe a career in teaching IT is an option.

As for salaries, well I'm always fighting for more money, even though I don't necessarily need it. These days if your not moving forward, your taking giant leaps backwards.

less is more, but if less is more how you keeping score?

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BatVink

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 19:00

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Quote: "I don't think it's a good idea to go from college/uni straight onto a programming career, more general business experience can really help."

Absolutely, otherwise you will have a very hard battle showing that you are more valuable than the next programmer. Anyone can program, because it's so accessible. You need to be able to program well, think around problems better and faster than the average coder, and prove you can provide solutions nobody has thought of yet to be successful. Programming is a task that is farmed out to the cheapest offshore alternative these days, so you have to be a solution-provider, not just a coder.

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hyrichter

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 19:04

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I guess you could say I still program for a living, but it's not much. I got sick of so much office work that I've cut back to only a couple hours each day. I earn most of my living working in a cabinet shop.

I could earn better money doing straight programming, but I can't stand being stuck in an office all day.

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Jeku

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 19:57 Edited at: 9th Jul 2008 20:09

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First let's separate IT from programming jobs. Typically IT are the guys you call up when you need your hard drive reformatted or you need your password reset. They program little, if all, at the companies I've worked for. They are network gurus.

Programmers don't deal with that stuff. In the beginning first few months of the project they will do tech document briefs, code design, and lots of paperwork. Eventually they'll sit with Visual Studio most of the day (or the language of choice), and write code, do buddy checks when other programmers want to submit code to the repository, revert changes if they break the build (thus landing them the "I broke the build today" trophy), and fix bugs toward the end of the dev cycle.

Quote: "I don't think it's a good idea to go from college/uni straight onto a programming career, more general business experience can really help."

I hate to disagree, but it really depends what they want to do. There's nothing worse than a "generalist" who knows a little bit about a wide variety of things but not enough about one thing. Most of the software engineers I work with came straight from college. At a previous employer I had to know more about business aspects, but then again there were just 15 of us in the company. Now I work at a factory with over 2,000 employees. Talented software engineers know their code, and they know it well. They did not need business courses and other certificates to get in.

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MikeS

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 21:13

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I'm currently in University studying for a Computer Science and Engineering degree. I think the key is just getting experience in whatever field you want to go in while at university. Currently I'm working two jobs, an internship(asp.net+SQL), the other a basic lab consultant job(helping people with C++). It's a lot to balance, but it is all programming related. Regardless, I have diversified myself in programming using multiple languages in different environments(web verse desktop development). Also, I am learning how to work in teams, communicate with people I don't even know, and how to quickly debug code. These are skills that are hard to pick up in the class room, but are going to be valuable regardless of your career.

As far as money goes, I'm making better than the kids working summers at fast food, but only by a few dollars an hour. Prior experience out of college could definitely help you get a salary boost when you start your first job out of college with a degree. Now that I'm actually working as a programmer, it's solidified that I want to be doing something related to software.

As far as job availability, if you head to a university in a big city, or just a big university, you'll set yourself up for a lot of opportunities. Both of my jobs are on the school campus, but there are always offers for downtown areas.

Please ask any further questions if I didn't get you a good idea of what's going on.

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Dazzag

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 21:22

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Yep. Although these days (13 years in the same job, although I work from home over looking the sea in Cyprus currently) I do a lot more project management, design etc etc etc.

These days it seems programmers are becoming two a penny and nowhere near as valuable as when I started out, and work shy project managers (I'm not even talking about the type that can do a programmers job and more, but more like account managers that are more like glorified postmen) that don't do much seem to be very highly valued (much more than most programmers it seems). So my one bit of advice after all these years is try and get into project management. The upsides are normally a lot more money, and portability of your job. If you plumped for the unfortunate trendy language at the minute that then ploughed into the ground a decade later then tough for a programmer. A project manager on the other hand can work anywhere pretty much. Nice. The downsides are that project managers get all the flak (and good stuff) to protect programmers, and they have to have a better personality than a *lot* of programmers (you know who you are).

Just my thoughts after years of watching biannual redundancies remove massive departments and all my friends and the like. Not bitter and twisted me

And now you know (one reason) why I really like beer...

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sinisterstuf

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Posted: 9th Jul 2008 22:21

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wow thanks guys. This was really helpful. And this thread must have the highest ratio of 'posts by mods' to 'total posts'!

...maybe not

Well, I know I definetely don't want to be an IT guy. There are loads of them here and... it just doesn't interest me. I would be aiming for something like what Van B talks about.

I'm just worried that there may not be enough job oppertunities by the time I'm done studying. Which country(s) is preferable for a programming related job? People these days are always saying "yeah, go for IT, loads of opperunities" because it's current but if everyone is going in that field... Well my parents think I should be an architect or a civil engineer or something...

What exactly does a project manager have to do?
Programming is still what appeals to me the most so far... I'm not sure if'll have to go overseas to find a job though or if I need study overseas...

apart from the fact that you sit in an office or wherever all day, is it ok? And what do you do? And if you could advise me, what area would you suggest I aim at?

Thanks everyone!
sinisterstuf

No, contrary to popular belief my name is not actually 'Sinister Stuff' but 'sinisterstuf', a misspelling resulting from the latter having too many characters with no spaces in between

oh well

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Dazzag

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 09:34 Edited at: 10th Jul 2008 09:38

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Yeah, it seems there are too many programmers now. Ok, so an experienced person is normally better, but chuck much cheaper new grads or overseas programmers at a big project and it will probably get there in the end. At least thats how businesses seem to look at it. I remember reading in IT you can kiss goodbye to good job opportunities (unless you are management or above then you can do no wrong) by the time you are 40, more like 35 for programmers. **** me, I'm ****** then!!!!!!!

Project management can differ throughout companies. In Uni we were taught they basically were better and more experienced versions of yourselves and could easily do what you do and more. But they don't normally do much coding. Is all design, communicating with the customer, and managing the programming team to get a project done. They also need a better personality than the average programmer to gel with the customers when things go wrong etc etc. Bit of a less slimey salesman basically. This is why they earn more money, are given longer notice periods, have much better job portability (go anywhere and project manage anything) and are treated a lot better generally than the average programmer. Note there is not much difference at times between them than a really decent analyst programmer, except I think the analyst programmer does more programming and less of everything else.

On the other hand you get project managers who are more like account managers. This is what happens at my place. They can't code for toffee, and most likely know less about the system than the janitor. They simply find out what the client wants (which I do most the time anyways) then just passes that info to the main analyst programmer who then does all the design, manages who does the programming, programs it, releases it, tests it, even updates the customer (PM does none of this). The PM then just emails every few days saying "Is it done yet?", and "I know it's friday afternoon, but can you work on this over the weekend because I promised it for monday. I would love to be there with you but I am playing golf and taking my daughter to Legoland". Nice. For this they get all the benefits of a proper PM, without hardly any of the work. Only major downside is a PM (and these guys) have to travel around a lot to client sites, that programmers rarely do. Even I only go now and again.

And yes, most of the time you just sit in an office all day. It's fine, but it helps if they allow you to listen to music and talk.

As for programming, I would say do you love it (used to ask this at interviews for new programmers)? I mean really love it? I still love it after all these years and even love just typing. If you think you can still love programming some dumb business systems (very much most likely) for decades then fine. Otherwise prepare to kill yourself after a while. I have friends who are brilliant programmers, but they never loved it (just did it for the money) and after 15-20 years or so they just got bored (especially now with all the downsides I mentioned above) or scared after seeing countless redundancies. Now I know a lot of them are working to get into project management, or self employment, or even a completely new direction. One bloke is now training in his spare time to become a builder (lots of money in stuff they never tell you about when you are IT inclined in school - a painter friend makes me look like I'm broke).

What area? Just get what you can. Much harder to be choosey for programmers these days. At the end of the day it's much more likely you will be programming (or technical supporting - AAAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!) some run of the mill business system (probably already exists and is well hard to follow what they did already). If you end up in games (which I think most of us start wanting) then great, but don't throw away perfectly good jobs for a dream that may never happen.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing

Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."

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RalphY

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 14:50 Edited at: 10th Jul 2008 14:51

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It's interesting that you mention there are too many programmers nowadays, as all through my degree the lecturers have been panicking that not enough people are taking computer science anymore. I wonder if that has yet to affect the industry and in a few years there wont be enough programmers? Either that or the lecturers were lying to stop us all transferring to other degrees when we realised how few jobs would be available

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Dazzag

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 15:48

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Quote: "It's interesting that you mention there are too many programmers nowadays, as all through my degree the lecturers have been panicking that not enough people are taking computer science anymore"

Could be the knock on effect of having to pay loads more for a degree these days (I paid nothing, and infact they paid me). All I can say is from what I've heard from programmer mates, and the company I work for (in the main building they have 200 programmers or so) then it gives the impression that there are *loads* of programmers (in the UK). We have row after row of fresh (read pimply) faced new grads silently programming away like some kind of robot freakshow. Turnover is massive, and so these days we get amusing goodbye parties to people who have been there 6 months and the like (wouldn't have noticed them for that length of time back in the day).

I could be wrong, but as I said could be the price of degrees finally bitting, plus don't forget your lecturer is probably only talking about the amount of people taking CS degrees (and probably only his college), and not in actual jobs. People who work in colleges also tend to be a bit hermitty when it comes to the outside world (friend of mine still hasn't left my Uni that we both started in 1991)...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing

Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."

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Eddie Gordo

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 16:01

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Quote: "First let's separate IT from programming jobs. Typically IT are the guys you call up when you need your hard drive reformatted or you need your password reset. They program little, if all, at the companies I've worked for. They are network gurus."

Canada is a strange place indeed, my job title is IT Specialist, my job description is everything from password recovery to systems administration to programming. In fact the only think i don't do according to my job description is Networking.

The primary focus of my job is programming, I write applications for customers and in house projects, I develop on Linux and Windows and web platforms of all wonderful kinds of things.

Quote: "What exactly does a project manager have to do?"

In my experience they sit and do nothing, Then whatever they call the position right below that does everything and a half.

Quote: "If there's anyone here who programs for a living then I'm just wondering what it's like, what kind of stuff you have to do, wether or not you get paid well and what kind of jobs are available for programmers."

In response to the original post, I am technically a software architect, but seeing that I am the only person who doesn't code legacy systems here I do all the programming as well. Right now I am working on an automated ordering system which includes a server side application that runs under Linux, a client side application which talks directly to our customers VT-400 based inventory management systems, and I am working with someone from our Inventory management systems company who is writing a perl script to allow me to query our inventory(we are a distribution company) so that our customers can automatically order parts from us(its always nice when you can tell your customers what they want to buy

). Previously I wrote an employee database that was simple and small and sync-able to outlook. I've written some basic data entry programs, and next i will be working on an interactive website for our company which will include some nice features like order tracking.

I get paid really well for my education level and experience, I get paid a little under what I would with a college degree, so its not bad, I am capable of making a living and supporting another human being so all is good.

In my experience to work in IT having good general IT knowledge is great, being good at everything is even better. Kentaree may have some insight on this we work with similar technologies but are an ocean apart, lots of good stuff travels between nations when it comes to IT

~Cyrano De Bergerac~

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Seppuku Arts

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 16:20

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Quote: "I could be wrong, but as I said could be the price of degrees finally bitting,"

That's what put a lot of my mates off from going to Uni, so they laughed at me, saying "you'll be in debt when you leave uni", which is true, £3070 was last years fee, + approx £4000 living expenses/rent/resources and for next year I've already paid £612 rent just to keep the estate agent happy over the summer months. The fees for next year are £3150. lets round it all down and say I'm paying £7000 (well my loan is - though I think last year's loan was a bit closer to £8000, can't remember) a year, so if all my years go well I'll end up with about £21,000 of debt, a big off putter. So I'm making the most of my time there and see how big I can get my CV with 'extra skills', one reason why I'm on Union Council.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant

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MikeS

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 17:15

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I wanted to also post this link.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2008/tc20080623_533491.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech
It's in reference to the United States, but the trend is occurring throughout the world.

A book? I hate book. Book is stupid.
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Seppuku Arts

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 17:25

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Quote: "It's in reference to the United States, but the trend is occurring throughout the world.
"

Would explain all these adverts saying:
"Get a job in IT, train around your current life style and come out as a qualified professional earning £30k" And I suppose if you're buggered for qualifications and you're not happy with what you're earning, then it sounds like a comfortable idea. Of course, that is, if adverts are true to their word.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant

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soapyfish

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 18:04 Edited at: 10th Jul 2008 18:05

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I'm doing a CIW Web Design course thingy at the moment and when I signed up for it I was told that there were more and more places for computer orientated workers and not enough skilled people to take the jobs. Perhaps they were just trying to sell it to me but I've always been of the opinion that more and more places are in need of skilled tech workers and there still aren't that many people interested in it as a career.

If that is true then I'm glad I just kind of picked up computers from an early age because it would seem it's the place to be as far as jobs/income are concerned. Of course that could be complete tosh and 5 years from now I may be trampyfish.

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Dazzag

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 18:45 Edited at: 10th Jul 2008 18:47

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Quote: "In my experience they sit and do nothing, Then whatever they call the position right below that does everything and a half"

About right. Don't forget they probably earn twice as much and have three times the notice period (better for you in these interesting times).

Quote: "if all my years go well I'll end up with about £21,000 of debt"

Bloody hell. I went to Uni in 1991 and got a grant of about £3k a year. So they gave me about £9k total (until 1994 - almost a decade and a half ago. Call it £15k-20k these days at a guess - probably almost the same as they are taking from you...). Never bought a book for study (actually pretended I was going on a course and got money for books as a birthday prezzie - still haven't read (or opened) most of them) and went a little over that on sweet alcohol

Quote: "Here's a hint for high school graduates or college students still majoring in indecision: Put down that guitar or book of poetry and pick up a laptop. Study computer science or engineering, and plan to move to a big city"

Hmmm. It just annoys me a little when you hear people doing supposed rubbish work but worth a fortune (and they never told you this in school because you were IT orientated). My painter buddy is a good example (totally loaded), but other things like builders, and in one case a bloke I know indirectly through a friend who made a business from delivering stuff to garages. Things like pens and toilet paper that the staff use. Totally and utterly loaded that one. Ok, so this is mainly self employed stuff, and businesses can cock up (a lot), but they never mentioned that in school. No, was all "You are lucky you are clever. We think you should be a programmer or a journalist". Ok, so I love programming and writing, so I'm not exactly complaining, but I mean you know, some sort of options to consider would have been nice. My painter friend was a moron and was told directly "Become a builder or a painter on YTS. It's all you are good for...". Hmmm...

Cheers

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Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."

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Van B

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 18:48

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I don't think the concerns are with the amount of programmers, it's more to do with the narrowed skillset we see with graduates. Being able to engineer and develop systems for any business is a skill that we see less and less of, in favor of more direct programming skills.

As we all seem to agree, it depends on the type of company you want to, or end up working for. You might be working with 100 other programmers, you might be the only programmer - either way it's your career and you should always have a clear path to advancement, which is something people studying IT can sometimes take for granted. When we get emails from recruitment companies, it's always the graduates with no experience outside of coding, who are looking for jobs.

less is more, but if less is more how you keeping score?

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Dazzag

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 18:55 Edited at: 10th Jul 2008 18:55

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Quote: "When we get emails from recruitment companies, it's always the graduates with no experience outside of coding, who are looking for jobs"

Dunno about that. We had 50 programmers in our department, and only a handful were newbies. From 2002 to 2008 we have pretty much had biannual redundancies that brought that number down to me (main development team leader) and another bloke (technical support guy). Probably about 10 are still employed elsewhere in the company. On another note it isn't great for stress, and outside our department I know off the top of my head one person who suffered a breakdown, another who had a miscarriage (directly related to work apparently), and another who had a stroke (worked his ass off and was always stressed).

On the other hand when I used to interview people (before we were took over and the redundancies started) we mainly had new grads. Pretty much 90% of the time really, and we had 100's of CVs a month at the time. Then again the agencies knew we leaned heavily on employing new grads. Our manager at the time, for a long period of time, refused anyone who had been out of Uni for more than about 3 or 4 years, or didn't have a CS degree (nope for HND or any other IT degree). He liked to mould people basically.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing

Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."

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Seppuku Arts

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Posted: 10th Jul 2008 18:56

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Quote: "Quote: "if all my years go well I'll end up with about £21,000 of debt"
Bloody hell. I went to Uni in 1991 and got a grant of about £3k a year. So they gave me about £9k total. Never bought a book (actually pretended I was going on a course and got money for books as a birthday prezzie - still haven't read (or opened) most of them) and went a little over that on sweet alcohol"

Hehe, well if I stayed at home it'd be a lot cheaper, but then you're not living the Uni life - hence I turned down one of my Uni choices (I lived too close for accommodation) Sure it means I owe twice as much money as I would.

Though I do spend money on books (as well as alcohol, hence you've seen a couple of drunk posts from me) I'd be lost without the books, because I like picking ideas for projects that the library lacks books on, heck the only places I've found I can get the books I've needed so far are Borders in Cambridge and the British Museum (And Amazon, but you can't exactly browse through a book there, so I've only bought 2 from there) Unfortunately using the internet doesn't work, maximum web research we're allowed is 30% and nothing from Wikipedia. Surprisingly, for my core 1 project I used 0% web research.

Anyway, I've gone off topic too far, I'm not even doing a computer related course. So please if need be, ignore me.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant

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sinisterstuf

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 01:17

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Ok, well thanks everyone for your input!

well, obviouy I didn't think I would get into games programming... Would be nice though, I guess.

and thanks again! Much appreciated.

enjoy your day
sinisterstuf

No, contrary to popular belief my name is not actually 'Sinister Stuff' but 'sinisterstuf', a misspelling resulting from the latter having too many characters with no spaces in between

oh well

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Seppuku Arts

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 01:48

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On the other hand it makes a great hobby, keeps your brain on its toes and well exercised, also can frustrate the hell out of you...well when you don't know where your problem lies, but I'm sure you overcome them the more you learn.

"Experience never provides its judgments with true or strict universality; but only (through induction) with assumed and comparative universality." - Immanuel Kant

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Beast E Gargoyle

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 06:07 Edited at: 12th Jul 2008 06:07

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I am going to college next year to learn to program video games. I like programming and typing and all, but as of recently I'm not sure if I'm seriously interested programming for 20 years. Webdesign and Gamestop manager/ Wal-Mart Electronics Manager positions are areas I would really like to work in. After college I was thinking about working at a job as a manager or webdesigner and programming as a hobby/ extra cash flow resource. So all in all dream big my friend and accomplish whatever you desire.

@Eddie Gordo- Nice to see another person from Ohio in the game making buisness.

All the best,

Beastegargoyle

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Gil Galvanti

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 07:36 Edited at: 12th Jul 2008 07:37

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Quote: "Ok, well thanks everyone for your input!

well, obviouy I didn't think I would get into games programming... Would be nice though, I guess."

Don't know why you don't think you could get into games programming, even if it is a tough industry, it's certainly possible, even if you don't enter EA as a Lead Programmer right out of college

. I'm going to college next year for a Bachelors of Computer Science with a focus on gaming. It counts as a complete BCS degree and not one of those crap game creation degrees from DeVry or somewhere similar, and if I needed/wanted, I could go into any field of programming with it. But it also means that while I'm studying, I will focus on game creation specifically, possibly giving me one-up when applying for a game programming job, as well as making the experience more fun for me while studying.

Quote: "Which country(s) is preferable for a programming related job?"

I would guess any Western European country and, of course, the US.

Quote: "I'm just worried that there may not be enough job oppertunities by the time I'm done studying. "

I wouldn't worry about that. While there may be more and more people graduating with degrees in those fields (I don't know), there are ALWAYS going to be new jobs opening in the field of technology.

Quote: "apart from the fact that you sit in an office or wherever all day, is it ok? And what do you do?"

Everything I've heard says that game development/other tech companies are some of the best to work at and most laid back and causal. I'm sure you've heard about Google always being chosen as #1 place to work, and from what I've read it definitely deserves it, it would be an awesome place to work.

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Dazzag

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 10:48

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Quote: "even if you don't enter EA as a Lead Programmer right out of college"

Actually one of my mates from college is a director at EA now. Last game I know he worked on was the Simpsons movie game. If only I had listened to him going on about ST raster routines in assembly rather than knocking back beer and playing Dungeon Master

Really though, I'm not sure if games programming will be much more interesting that any other programming. I doubt you get to design anything, probably have to stick to strict standards, only get to program a small part of the game, and probably is repetative as hell when the small bugs are being ironed out. Imagine working on the same game for years? Yawn. End product and kudos though would be ace. Going on about an airport system I was involved with back in 96, and seeing all of them start booking one at a time as they came on line around the world just doesn't cut it even against "Look, the game that I did probably no more than 10% of the work on, just made number 57 on the charts!!!".

Quote: "Everything I've heard says that game development/other tech companies are some of the best to work at"

Depends. My old company was ace. Like working with your best mates. Music on all the time, loud funny conversations, lots of time at the pub etc etc. But my next place was like working in a battery farm. Think Dilbert but without any funny things going on. From our clients I have visited this massively ranges from dingy offices with slave labour looking people, to fantastic glass open efforts with coffee bars and shops integrated into the offices. Nice.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing

Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."

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BatVink

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 11:24

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Quote: "Everything I've heard says that game development/other tech companies are some of the best to work at"

Sure...if you can handle extreme amounts of pressure. Deadlines are set by people who don't actually know exactly what is involved in completing a project. The deadline is non-movable, which is bad enough. But picking up the pieces afterwards is where the pressure really kicks in.

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Dazzag

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Posted: 12th Jul 2008 12:05

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Quote: "Deadlines are set by people who don't actually know exactly what is involved in completing a project"

Yep, we all get that, but normally we can manipulate the dates a bit, or even be the ones who come up with the dates in the first place (Scottie style if you know what I mean). Hell, my old manager even programmed in "Automatic wiggle time" into our old scheduling system to make sure the PMs didn't take the mick. Game companies though? Probably well stuffed once someone announces a release date to the press. Plus from what I read most game software houses can be broken by a single game with no extra revenue coming in. At least most other software houses tend to get money from support, customer development requests (to enhance their product that they pay for unlike games where you have to bring out a whole new sequel really or at the very least a big update pack), training, consultancy etc etc. We get paid (lucrative support contracts) even if they never need us all year. Nice.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing

Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."

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Jeku

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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Posted: 12th Jul 2008 20:42

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Quote: "I doubt you get to design anything, probably have to stick to strict standards, only get to program a small part of the game, and probably is repetative as hell when the small bugs are being ironed out. Imagine working on the same game for years? Yawn."

That's pretty much the case!

The worst part is when the managers plan the overtime into the schedule. They don't admit it, but since it's clockwork at the same time, every year, it's not hard to put 2 and 2 together.

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Geek Culture / Does anyone here program for a living?