Harder than Expected
I'm pretty overdue for an update haha. I've been writing so many cover letters and tests in the last month and a half that I don't know if I'll be able to write a casual journal entry... so bear with me :)
So, I moved to the San Francisco bay area.
Also, bears rock.
I graduated on 5/16. My perspective on the whole deal was that, after messing around for about 22 years of my life, it was finally time to get started. It would be a breeze, I thought. It didn't really matter where I went, as long as I was doing something interesting in an interesting place. I knew with absolute certainty I would leave the DC area. I knew with high confidence that I would find a place suitable for me.
Turns out, life is not that easy :)
I realized after some thinking that I wanted to revive my old dream of game development. I took a hard look at my "open a bar in Beijing" plan and decided it was too risky for now. I also found out that MBA programs USUALLY don't take students with less than 2 years of working experience (although this is a changing trend and studies have proven that students with NO experience get more out of MBA programs). Anyways, I decided that game dev was where I wanted to be headed, and game design in particular.
I started sending out my resume to game companies in various places (Europe, Australia, Singapore, all around the US, even near DC). Soon my expectations lowered as I realized that my highly coveted game designer job was NOT an entry level position, but a highly competitive position that there is almost no set career path to achieve. I started applying for QA positions (game testing) that were entry level positions. By June, I had received NO replies. A week later, after 30+ resumes had been sent out, I received NO human replies.
The pressure was mounting for me. I was getting sucked back into the comforts and boredom of my life in NOVA and I became desperate for an escape. Advice I found everywhere said that, to break into the games industry, I needed to make myself a local candidate and move to a "hotbed of game development." So when my friend Victor graciously offered me a place to stay in San Francisco as I hunted for jobs, I jumped on it and bought a one-way ticket to SF a week and a half later.
A day after buying the ticket, I said to myself: oh SHIT. The fuck was I thinking? Further research revealed that QA testers, even in the expensive San Francisco bay area, were paid about $10-$15 / hour. An extensive search of company listings in the area only revealed 6 companies actively hiring for QA positions. I applied to several the day before I left, but only ever heard back from one company: Electronic Arts. Ironically, on EA's recruitment ad, it says "PLEASE CONSIDER THE IMPLICATIONS OF MOVING TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FOR A TEMPORARY $10/HOUR WAGE." What kind of fucking dipshit company offers a job that you can hardly survive on? FULLTIME?
The answer is EA folks, and the more general answer is the games industry.
Before boarding the plane, I realized I needed a backup plan. I had always had one, of course: web development. I had basically sworn to myself that I would not use this plan in NOVA. But here I was, frantically building my portfolio in a few days (http://pinwang.info. Since making it, I've come to truly dislike its layout and navigation... and style). I got a phone interview for one company the Friday before my flight, and bombed it like a total noob. Even getting a web development job, I realized, was going to be tough in the highly competitive bay area job market.
So I boarded the plane. The days before that boarding I was scared shitless. I mean, I was going across the country with a bag full of clothes, no money, and no job... to look for a job. In the airport though, I was reminded of all my adventures and why I love airports. I had a feeling of excitement, and suddenly the challenges ahead seemed less scary and more intriguing. I had my doubts, but entering Dulles airport, I remembered what each traveling experience had taught me: its a big world out there, and you can do whatever the fuck you want in it.
My first week, I applied to several web dev jobs (had already applied to every QA job before even arriving). I definitely applied to over 5 jobs a day the first three days. After that, I continued to apply to a large number of jobs. I thanked my history classes that gave me strong writing skills, since I pumped out cover letter after cover letter. Recruiters wouldn't stop calling me. Fuck them. Recruiters call you, send your resume off, and never get back to you. Must have had like 20 recruiters call me. Maybe when my expected salary rises, they will actually care.
Anyways, by the end of week one, I had a couple phone interviews and interest e-mails. I had another phone interview and didn't completely bomb it haha. I progressively got better with phone interviews and the second week, I secured my first face to face interview. At this point, I had a couple game companies interested in me for web development positions. I passed a programming test that, apparently, noone else who had applied for the position had ever passed (although it took me longer than it should have). My buddy working at that company said that they were desperate, and that should I not go crazy on the phone interview, they might even offer over the phone! Of course, I completely bombed the phone interview, struggling on basic and predictable programming questions like "how would you sort an unordered array without copying it?" Of course, after that hard test that had taken me 5 hours to complete, I had expected an interview with personal questions. I wanted that job badly, and struggled on questions that I knew the answer for. Basically, I blew it, and they sent me a letter of rejection the same day. Receiving that letter, I had a momentary feeling of regret for not pursuing a degree in computer science as my father had suggested (it passed quickly though haha). My friend was disappointed, but not as much as I was.
Life goes on. That same afternoon the company that I had interviewed with face to face offered. The offer was low, so I said I would think about it. An hour later, another gaming company called me and phone interviewed me for a similar position. Things were finally looking up (this was last Friday). Over the weekend, I thought about the offer. What they offered was dramatically lower than the average salaries my research had revealed for the same position. After all the job is in Silicon Valley less than 10 minutes from the Google office and next door to AMD and other big tech companies. I was kind of insulted, but I wanted that job badly. I thought pretty hard about it. The other job was in a casual game company, and the first was at Gala-Net, a Japanese-owned, Korean-dominated international MMO developer (exactly where I wanted to end up). Though the job at the second company was in the city, and was a lead position (great setup for an MBA I thought), I wasn't too sure if I was ready for a lead position and didn't want to risk the other offer. I was getting VERY impatient about finding a job and to settle down (two days ago). I pulled the trigger, asked for 15,000 more (yes, their offer was that much lower than the average), and when they came back with only a 5,000 increase, I accepted anyways.
I knew I would pay the price in salary to be in the games industry, so I don't feel too bad about it :) At least I have benefits, and from my budget calculations I'll be able to survive and save some money. I'm going to be in the suburbs again (way out of SF), but it'll be in a new area and hopefully I'll meet some cool people. I've scouted out MMA gyms in the area already hehe, and I'm going to ship my car over. My buddy who works at the other company will hopefully room with me, and I start on 7/14.
I'll probably visit NOVA again eventually. But now that visit will be digging into my vacation time I can use to go other places, so I don't know how often I'll be coming back. Either way, I will definitely miss NOVA. OK, not really :) I will probably feel slightly nostalgic about the people I knew in NOVA. Visit me any time though, I welcome you in my future new home :)
Thanks to Victor for letting me stay at his place, or I should really be thanking Nick for letting me hijack his room before he gets here! Thanks to everyone who I have talked to in the last 3 weeks and who gave me advice or just talked to me about the challenges I was facing. I hope to work hard and open opportunities for myself in game development and eventually achieve my dreams. My plan is to get to know some producers, get an MBA after two years, and have a junior producer position waiting for me when I finish. Then I can eventually move into design. Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone.
Cheers,
-Pin
So, I moved to the San Francisco bay area.
Also, bears rock.
I graduated on 5/16. My perspective on the whole deal was that, after messing around for about 22 years of my life, it was finally time to get started. It would be a breeze, I thought. It didn't really matter where I went, as long as I was doing something interesting in an interesting place. I knew with absolute certainty I would leave the DC area. I knew with high confidence that I would find a place suitable for me.
Turns out, life is not that easy :)
I realized after some thinking that I wanted to revive my old dream of game development. I took a hard look at my "open a bar in Beijing" plan and decided it was too risky for now. I also found out that MBA programs USUALLY don't take students with less than 2 years of working experience (although this is a changing trend and studies have proven that students with NO experience get more out of MBA programs). Anyways, I decided that game dev was where I wanted to be headed, and game design in particular.
I started sending out my resume to game companies in various places (Europe, Australia, Singapore, all around the US, even near DC). Soon my expectations lowered as I realized that my highly coveted game designer job was NOT an entry level position, but a highly competitive position that there is almost no set career path to achieve. I started applying for QA positions (game testing) that were entry level positions. By June, I had received NO replies. A week later, after 30+ resumes had been sent out, I received NO human replies.
The pressure was mounting for me. I was getting sucked back into the comforts and boredom of my life in NOVA and I became desperate for an escape. Advice I found everywhere said that, to break into the games industry, I needed to make myself a local candidate and move to a "hotbed of game development." So when my friend Victor graciously offered me a place to stay in San Francisco as I hunted for jobs, I jumped on it and bought a one-way ticket to SF a week and a half later.
A day after buying the ticket, I said to myself: oh SHIT. The fuck was I thinking? Further research revealed that QA testers, even in the expensive San Francisco bay area, were paid about $10-$15 / hour. An extensive search of company listings in the area only revealed 6 companies actively hiring for QA positions. I applied to several the day before I left, but only ever heard back from one company: Electronic Arts. Ironically, on EA's recruitment ad, it says "PLEASE CONSIDER THE IMPLICATIONS OF MOVING TO THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA FOR A TEMPORARY $10/HOUR WAGE." What kind of fucking dipshit company offers a job that you can hardly survive on? FULLTIME?
The answer is EA folks, and the more general answer is the games industry.
Before boarding the plane, I realized I needed a backup plan. I had always had one, of course: web development. I had basically sworn to myself that I would not use this plan in NOVA. But here I was, frantically building my portfolio in a few days (http://pinwang.info. Since making it, I've come to truly dislike its layout and navigation... and style). I got a phone interview for one company the Friday before my flight, and bombed it like a total noob. Even getting a web development job, I realized, was going to be tough in the highly competitive bay area job market.
So I boarded the plane. The days before that boarding I was scared shitless. I mean, I was going across the country with a bag full of clothes, no money, and no job... to look for a job. In the airport though, I was reminded of all my adventures and why I love airports. I had a feeling of excitement, and suddenly the challenges ahead seemed less scary and more intriguing. I had my doubts, but entering Dulles airport, I remembered what each traveling experience had taught me: its a big world out there, and you can do whatever the fuck you want in it.
My first week, I applied to several web dev jobs (had already applied to every QA job before even arriving). I definitely applied to over 5 jobs a day the first three days. After that, I continued to apply to a large number of jobs. I thanked my history classes that gave me strong writing skills, since I pumped out cover letter after cover letter. Recruiters wouldn't stop calling me. Fuck them. Recruiters call you, send your resume off, and never get back to you. Must have had like 20 recruiters call me. Maybe when my expected salary rises, they will actually care.
Anyways, by the end of week one, I had a couple phone interviews and interest e-mails. I had another phone interview and didn't completely bomb it haha. I progressively got better with phone interviews and the second week, I secured my first face to face interview. At this point, I had a couple game companies interested in me for web development positions. I passed a programming test that, apparently, noone else who had applied for the position had ever passed (although it took me longer than it should have). My buddy working at that company said that they were desperate, and that should I not go crazy on the phone interview, they might even offer over the phone! Of course, I completely bombed the phone interview, struggling on basic and predictable programming questions like "how would you sort an unordered array without copying it?" Of course, after that hard test that had taken me 5 hours to complete, I had expected an interview with personal questions. I wanted that job badly, and struggled on questions that I knew the answer for. Basically, I blew it, and they sent me a letter of rejection the same day. Receiving that letter, I had a momentary feeling of regret for not pursuing a degree in computer science as my father had suggested (it passed quickly though haha). My friend was disappointed, but not as much as I was.
Life goes on. That same afternoon the company that I had interviewed with face to face offered. The offer was low, so I said I would think about it. An hour later, another gaming company called me and phone interviewed me for a similar position. Things were finally looking up (this was last Friday). Over the weekend, I thought about the offer. What they offered was dramatically lower than the average salaries my research had revealed for the same position. After all the job is in Silicon Valley less than 10 minutes from the Google office and next door to AMD and other big tech companies. I was kind of insulted, but I wanted that job badly. I thought pretty hard about it. The other job was in a casual game company, and the first was at Gala-Net, a Japanese-owned, Korean-dominated international MMO developer (exactly where I wanted to end up). Though the job at the second company was in the city, and was a lead position (great setup for an MBA I thought), I wasn't too sure if I was ready for a lead position and didn't want to risk the other offer. I was getting VERY impatient about finding a job and to settle down (two days ago). I pulled the trigger, asked for 15,000 more (yes, their offer was that much lower than the average), and when they came back with only a 5,000 increase, I accepted anyways.
I knew I would pay the price in salary to be in the games industry, so I don't feel too bad about it :) At least I have benefits, and from my budget calculations I'll be able to survive and save some money. I'm going to be in the suburbs again (way out of SF), but it'll be in a new area and hopefully I'll meet some cool people. I've scouted out MMA gyms in the area already hehe, and I'm going to ship my car over. My buddy who works at the other company will hopefully room with me, and I start on 7/14.
I'll probably visit NOVA again eventually. But now that visit will be digging into my vacation time I can use to go other places, so I don't know how often I'll be coming back. Either way, I will definitely miss NOVA. OK, not really :) I will probably feel slightly nostalgic about the people I knew in NOVA. Visit me any time though, I welcome you in my future new home :)
Thanks to Victor for letting me stay at his place, or I should really be thanking Nick for letting me hijack his room before he gets here! Thanks to everyone who I have talked to in the last 3 weeks and who gave me advice or just talked to me about the challenges I was facing. I hope to work hard and open opportunities for myself in game development and eventually achieve my dreams. My plan is to get to know some producers, get an MBA after two years, and have a junior producer position waiting for me when I finish. Then I can eventually move into design. Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone.
Cheers,
-Pin