YouthCentral Regional.Gippsland

 

 

Lead programmer - Adam boyld

I'm a lead programmer at IR Gurus. That means I take care of a team of other programmers and schedule the work of game projects. I also undertake high risk code on the projects and generally do a bit of housekeeping around On a typical day we start the day with a team meeting and talk about what we've achieved over the last few days, hurdles or obstacles coming up and what people will be doing for the rest of the day. I might do some coding. I might attend a meeting or two, discussing the game design or architecture. A lead programmer will generally work on only one game at a time, but across different platforms. The game I'm working on at present will take about two years, which is a longer than usual . A typical project would go for about 18 months. At present I have a team of four programmers, but over the next six months this will grow to fourteen. For consoles, the team sizes really increase. Teams can run from 30 to 70 people.

As a project manager, I look after and assign people to different roles, meet the time lines, and look after the quality. I'm responsible for all of my programmers, and report to a producer. My role is to make sure the programs follow the design and meets a certain quality.

I do about 50-50 programming and managing a team.

How did you get to where you are today?

I've been passionate about video games since I was 15. I started with an Atari 2600 and thought this is for me. So I sent a letter to a games company and said 'I want to be a games programmer!' They sent a letter back saying 'you're too young, go away and get a degree'. So I did that. I got a computer science degree. Somewhere a long the way I lost my way and got a 'real job' and for 7 years, did a bit of business programming. I wasn't happy doing that, so thought about what I was happy doing. At that point I spent about a year creating demonstration games and submitted them to a Melbourne company. They accepted me and I've been game programming ever since - that was about eight and half years ago. I'm really happy I went that way and followed my dreams. I've only worked in one other company - it was a large company with big offices in different countries, so I've been able to work in a few different studios.

What skills are necessary for you to do your job?

You would have to have some sort of programming background. I believe a computer science degree is almost a pre-requisite, unless you've got extremely special abilities or demonstrations to show. A computer science degree gives you a general grounding in the mathematical and programming concepts that you need to become a programmer. There are generally tools that you need to learn that every game studios uses, and certain compilers and environments. And, if you are starting out you can definitely get experience in those things without being part of a professional organization. So when we look for younger people and graduates we look for people who have learned those tools themselves. You need strong C++ skills.
For a program manager role, you need communication skills. You need to not be afraid to direct people's work, and be stronger in your personality than you need to be when working as a programmer. There are general management skills and things that you can learn in a management course. A business degree course would also be helpful in taking on a role such as mine. I don't have any experience in that side of thing but working in the games industry for a long period of time has given me that experience. I guess you can sort of elevate yourself to a lead role if you show that you are ready for that kind of thing. For lead programmers you are generally looking for about five to eight years experience. It depends on the company. If there is an opening in a company it is possible to jump into that role with less experience.

How important was your education/training?

It is definitely not impossible to get in to games without a degree because there are people who work in my studio that don't have any formal qualifications, but it's not the norm. Normally people have a computer science degree or some sort of diploma in computing, with a specialist course in games programming as well. I believe having a computer science degree really gives you an edge against people that's don't have those computing backgrounds as you get exposure to a huge variety of programming styles and methodologies, and also mathematics as well. Having a grounding in mathematics really helps.

Where do you see your career going?

There a number of different career paths you can take from a lead programming position. Obviously, if you are stronger on the management side then you can take a more management based role. You could become a technical producer for instance, or an option to become technical director that oversees a project and the technical requirements within the studio. There are also specialist roles - an example is AI, a graphics role another, or maybe just a technologist in general. Graphics and AI are probably the areas where you can specialise. Perhaps physics as well - that's gaining a lot of ground as a specialist area as there's so much more physics in today's games than there was in the past. They're getting more and more complex and physics plays a huge part.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to enter the games industry?

It depends on what level they are at already. If you're not part of the game industry, I recommend that you be extremely stubborn and stick to your guns. If you keep trying everything you can, you'll eventually get into the industry. The way I did it was working after work on my own demos and making sure that I knew exactly how a game was put together so that when the interview came around to those questions, I would be ready for them. There is so many different organisations and websites, you can become familiar with the industry without being part of it. That's really what we look for in a graduate, someone who has a real passion to be in the games industry; they are familiar with games, they know the basic environments that they'll have to work in as programmers, and they have the skills.

Meet the Youthcentral

Content Editor Adam Ford

Adam came on board as the youthcentral Content Editor at the end of May 2006. Though he was a touch nervous about filling the big boots that his predecessor wore, he calmed down long enough to answer a few of our more burning questions.

How do you feel about being the new Content Editor for youthcentral?

It's a big challenge to be able to understand everything that goes on under the youthcentral banner, but I'm looking forward to getting to know the site backwards. I'm also looking forward to working with the production team, who seem like a swell bunch of folks, as well as all of the writers on the site, who are already inundating me with great ideas for stories and articles.

What does the Content Editor do?

The Content Editor looks after all of the writing on the youthcentral site, from the news that gets posted in each Right Here, Right Now section to the articles and reviews in Get Involved to the information pages that cover everything from careers advice to how to manage your finances.

That means that I'm the one who makes sure all the spelling is correct, who chases down and vaporises inappropriate apostrophes, who works with the roving reporters and local content teams to come up with ideas for stories and articles, and who works with the other production staff to get those ideas and stories up live on the actual website.

What attracted you to working with youthcentral?

I worked as a writer on the original version of youthcentral, so I was familiar with the site and I really liked the way it had evolved from its inception. I have a history of working as an editor with young writers - I used to be the editor of Voiceworks magazine (new window) back in the dim, dark mid-nineties - and the prospect of working alongside creative young people once again was an enticing one.

Do you have a favourite section of youthcentral?

I'm always hesitant to answer that kind of question, because I don't want to upset any web pages that I might forget to mention. A surly webpage giving me grief about feelings of neglect - be they real or imagined - can make an editor's day that little bit longer and more stressful.

Let's just say I think of all of the pages on youthcentral as my children, and I love them all equally. But if I was going to recommend a place for people to start exploring youthcentral I'd probably suggest that they start with either the Get Involved or the Jobs and Careers pages and take it from there.

What new experiences do you bring to the Content Editor role?

I don't know about new experiences, but I've worked as a book editor, a web site editor and a journalist for heaps of different organisations including the Big Issue, InPress, Lonely Planet, Crumpler and others too boring to mention. I've also had a novel and two poetry books published, as well as putting out my own zines and comics.

I think that all of these experiences have allowed me to develop a pretty good understanding of what's involved in researching, writing, editing and publishing, and I hope that that understanding will contribute in one way or another to my new job as youthcentral's content editor.

What are you hoping to achieve as Content Editor?

I hope it doesn't sound too cliched, but I'm hoping to be part of creating interesting and useful new content on the site, content that will be regularly updated. I'm also looking forward to helping our enormous team of editors and roving reporters to become the internationally famous and talented writers that I know they all can become, given the right opportunity. That's me - starmaker extraordinaire.