The Panel
- Joel Beardshaw – Lead Game Designer
- Manesh Mistry – Head of Engineering
- Alannah Folwer – Associate QA Analyst
- Angel Spence-Lewis – Operations Officer
My Notes From the Visit
A Question I asked
My question: “What are your guys’ position on Generalist vs Specialist positions (since they mentioned that they are a mid-size company and not a big or small one)?”
- Manesh stated that having varied skills makes a person stand out from the others. He’s filtered a lot of programming applications, but has often looked more closely at those that show more skills.
- Joel: wants the spine of the portfolio work to be for the role, but anything else (other skills) will help you to stand out.
- True generalists don’t exist that much, but some generalists and knowledge of applications are good.
How has this helped me? I was unsure because I am often drawn to generalist positions, where I can work in my assigned role as well as other tidbits, knowing that a AA company likes people who have an understanding of technical aspects of Game Design. I strongly dislike being shoehorned into one role, so this really helped me out.
5 Things I Learned from this Trip
- Make loads of weird, quirky games! (emphasis on weird and quirky) to showcase your ideas and what you bring to the table. Customise your games to your personality.
- Be curious, experiment with things.
- Have a little bit of knowledge of the culture of your studio before you apply.
- More ideas = more momentum, reduce scope if needed.
- Learn a bit of different disciplines: like a bit of art terminology as a programmer and vice versa.