Experienced Unity user asking for career advancing advises

Hi, guys,
I have been working in game industry professionally for a little over 3 years and I have been using Unity since Unity 3.0 came out( probably 5 or 6 years ago ).
First of all, I really want to thank Unity for keeping me employed and I know if I want to, as long as Unity exists, I will probably never worry about finding a job.
That said, I found that jobs that requires Unity experience seem to be pretty lame , boring, not-AAA, small , low-budget, copy cat project. I think that makes sense, Unity is a super user-friendly engine and learning curve is low,price is relatively low as well, so pretty much, anyone with a brain can use it. This should be a good thing, right?

Not exactly, since I have been using Unity to develop games, my experience is pretty limited and because I am too comfortable with Unity and I have been using Unity at work all the time, I found my c++ and OpenGl skill are getting worse/outdated. When I am trying to apply a game developer role that requires C++ primarily, I found it super hard to get in that kind of position again, because they don't want someone with a lot of Unity experience, because your Unity knowledge or C# as a programming don't transfer to another company very well.

So, right now, I am stuck at a point where I don't want to work on any S***ty little Unity game app anymore, and I am not competitive when I am trying to apply a position in bigger company. Most of company I know in Los Angeles area either use their own private C++ engine or develop games natively( android or objective-C ). Bigger developers who do use third party engines use either UDK/UE or cry engine. I know Blizzard and Wayforward in this area uses Unity, but Blizzard has a small team for Hearthstone, so it is hard to get in. Wayforward, a company I have worked for before as an engine programmer, cut their project developed in Unity a year ago.

My point is, I am still at early stage of my career, and I feel big project/big team experience is important for my career. However, there really aren't many big developers out there use Unity, so I am pretty much stuck at where I am with my experience. I am not blaming anyone, I just wish I could've seen this happening early so I may either just pick up UDK while I was in school or keep doing C++ game programming.

To wrap this up, I am just wondering if anyone in the game industry has gone through this or any game industry veteran could share me some career advice. I have been thinking about this for a long long time. At mean, I am brushing up my skills besides Unity, hopefully, I can be fluent with UDK 4 and try to update my OpenGL knowledge to the latest.

Thanks for you guys help.

 

Instead of defending Unity (though I did vote no), I'm going to go with a different tact. Why not try something new?

I presume learning a new Engine/Language, like any complex system, can be quite educational, learning the flaws of not only it, but your own current engine as well as the benefits of both. In addition, it can open entirely new markets.

Pick it up in your spare time, do a couple simple projects, and engage with it's community.

Worse comes to worse, you decide it sucks, and learn to appreciate Unity more. Best comes to best, you learn better solutions to problems, build cooler projects and have a bigger wallet

 

Unity can affect your career either way, good or bad. Might as well get good at using it if you're serious about it.

 

Thx for your comments.
Ya, it is probably the best I can do right now.
I love Unity, man. But I just found that the more I use it, the more I am marginalizing myself from hard core game development.
I love it, but I am also afraid that Unity defines my career(at least, it does so far).

 

Unless you are trying to specialize as an engine programmer (and get into that pay bracket), I don't imagine it's really hurting you.

Saying you've made custom character controllers, AI, pathfinding, shaders, etc. is more important than saying you've done those things in Unity. Everything else is just a matter of language and environment, which while helpful, isn't usually necessary, especially with studio that use an in-house engine. Understanding theory is usually more important than specifics in this case.

 

If you want to be a future engine developer then I guess yea it's not really helping you, but if you want to make games and not worry about the low level stuff then don't worry about it. Mind you being an engine developer is really a vague term since there are different parts in a game engine, graphics, audio, physics, etc. If you want to make something from scratch then it would be a good learning experience to make a small basic game, but if you want to actually create an enjoyable game for others to play then it's much smarter using the tools available.

From time to time you may get an elite game developer telling you that you're not a true game developer if you don't create your own engine from scratch, in which you should answer them that they're not true developers if they don't create their own compilers, IDE's, and libraries from scratch