Jobs and careers using Unity (Explain?)

I saw that many people can get job which only requires Unity3D knowledge, especially freelancers.

Some people say a freelancer does not have to have any degree to take the job, is this true? What about big companies ? Or that with a degree, the income would be higher?

Personally, I aim to be a programmer, probably the hardest role to take the job without any degree, right? .
I would appreciate any advice.

 

That's the thing about coding and this field in general, experience trumps a degree, however a degree never hurts, I've noticed (not a real equation) but around 6-7 out of 10 jobs don't require a degree at all. As long as you can prove you know what you're doing, demonstrate it you pretty much are good to go.

 

Depends on the job and the company. A degree may help and it may not be a limitation not having one. Depends on the individual. Primarily it will be based on experience and skill (as is salary). A buddy of mine is an senior engineering director at google who only has an art degree (animation). If you want to be engineer, start programming. If a structured environment for learning works best for you, then a degree might very useful to you. It is a very individual career path.

 

Wow glad to hear that a degree isn't a big deal. I didn't start college, would a cheaper way, like learning online, have enough to cover everything I need to know for a job?
I would like to save 4 years of college and the money.

 

No way to say really. Technically, all the information you need is available via books and the internet, but knowledge is only a part of it. Ability, skill and application are the critical parts. It is ultimately how you apply it. Employers look for people who can program and solve problems well. Learning fundamentally how to program isn't the same as being a good programmer. If you are motivated and have the drive and mindset for it, you can learn everything you need online for free.

 

I wouldn't say that a degree is the be-all or end-all of getting a job; however it does certainly help get your foot in some doors when applying. Its another arrow in your quiver for when applying for job roles (the same as any other qualification, work experience, created project, achieved award, etc)

 

Well, maybe college will prepare me better. It's just that my situation requires me to make money early. I can still work while attending college, as freelancer or indie.

 

You can't really get a job as a programmer until you are a programmer. You may be able to get an entry level job in something like QA while you are learning, but if you aren't already a programmer you won't find work, freelance or otherwise, in the field. If you have no experience, getting a degree will help you get in, as you will gain experience while in school. It is definitely possible to be successful without a degree, but is almost always a longer path.

 

Yes experience worth more than knowledge. I will definitely have to go to college. It is hard now but it will be much easier later.
A degree can be helpful when I switch fields, spending few years and some money worth it.

 

One thing I can say for 100% fact though is, if a job has to deal with the Government (USA Government) at least, I'm 99.9% sure a degree is required, mainly to cover their butts... Well unless you hack the NSA and they recruit you LOL. (Don't recommend trying haha).

But that's mainly the only time I ever really see degrees being required is if someone does work for the government, plus getting a TS-C (Top-Secret Security Clearance), generally because of OPSEC and backgrounds.

 

To me experience beats formal education. If you are looking for work i would figure out what local companies are doing, and start to participate in the local game development community. Go to some game jams, and network and show off your skills. School is not the only way to gain experience and become a programmer game jams and personal projects you can show off will go a long way as well.

Now when it comes to getting stable work i would try not to market yourself as only a Unity3D developer, the more experience you get the more you will see that code is just code and that what really matters is your problem solving and critical thinking skills. If these are solid you can teach yourself anything you need to know in the industry on the go.

I been at this for about 5 years now, started freelance then moved onto salary work for a startup. My strongest skills are in Unity, 3d math and shaders but over the last while, but what has kept me going is my willingness and ability to quickly learn new things when needed. Been doing i would say about 80% games work using unity but i have also done bits of work within the medical field that took advantage of my 3d math skills and have wrote front and back ends for mobile apps when work for games at the company has been slow and we needed income.

really if you have good quality work you can show off, have the ability to quickly learn and adapt and can back that up with good networking/people skills you will be just fine weather you have the education or not.

 

I have worked on some government funded research projects, and even than equivalent amounts of experience and good references will make up for that.

 

Ahh nice never knew that, I just see degree required and skip on by haha. .. Even though I was in the G2 and S2 (Military Intelligence) working along side the S3 and G3 (pretty much Spec Ops), I still didn't need a degree, I worked my way up the ladder rung by rung. Took me 4 years of kissing butt to get their, proving my self, a good reference can go a long ways...

I wouldn't trade the days of propelling out helicopters for anything... So I agree a reference can go along ways, I guess it goes back to the old saying "It's not what you know, it's who you know" haha.

 

Indeed. I have done work for a few government agencies/contracts (CBE/DOT/ODOT/NASA) and lack of degree wasn't an issue. Though it was all contract, it may be different for a fte.

 

Yeah, I've done work for all sorts and I never finished my degree. But, I did attend university and have structured, formal training in my field for nearly four years. The lack of a degree doesn't seem to have hurt me, but that's likely to be in part because I have a heck of a lot of practical experience to back up my real-world skill.

I suspect that a huge part of whether or not a formal qualification matters depends on the culture of the individual job you're applying for. If executives or non-technical managers are making the call then they have to rely on those qualifications, because they don't have the ability to evaluate technical skill themselves. At the end of the day that's exactly what formal qualifications are for - an institution with a reputation is saying "we certify that this person knows at least this much about this field". On the other hand, if technical people are making the call then they have the ability to make their own judgement of your capability, and are more likely to care about that than they are a piece of paper.

As far as broad advice goes, there's two things to keep in mind in software development. First of all, the ability to "self-teach" is critical because things move and change very quickly. What you learn while getting a formal qualification should be seen as a foundation on which you'll keep building. Secondly, though, you want that foundation to be solid. If you're only self-teaching then it's easy to miss something fundamental and end up making your own life harder by doing things "the long way". If you're starting with a structured formal education that's worth its salt then it should make sure that your foundation is solid and complete.

When I was hiring people, even if someone had a formal qualification I was always looking for things they'd done themselves outside of that. This showed two things: first, that they were able to learn and solve new things on their own, and second, that they had the drive to go beyond just passing their qualification - they were in this because they wanted to be in it.

 

this 100% as a result of being self taught early on i pretty much had to make sure i'm talking to the tech director or one of the senior developers in which cases i got offered a job everytime. My luck with HR departments on the other hand is pretty bad.

 

I notice in many of your replies you say "yes I will have to go to college". You don't *have* to go to college. The key is (as many have said) to *be* a programmer. They aren't saying get a degree. A degree in IT that has you doing some programming doesn't make you a programmer. And even with the degree you better have as much programming experience you can get. Because some other people will have it.

Also I don't know if you specifically mean it has to be a job as Unity programmer. If so... why? It sounds like you're saying you "aim to be a programmer" which implies you currently are not.

Programming is a huge field encompassing far more than Unity. Even for game programming. There is HTML5 game programming, native mobile game programming, and many others.

And if you would be content being a programmer but not in games then you have a massive number of options.

The thing is all you need to know to get such a job is readily available.

This is what I suggest...

• Browse job ads for programmers (whether games or not)
• Find 50 jobs that sound interesting to you based on the description
  
• Document the skills required for each job. Basically just do a tally like if a job says C# and it isn't on your list yet then write it down with a | after it. The next time you come across C# tally it as well so now C# ||
• At the end look at the top 3 skills (the ones with the highest demand)
• Now you know what you should learn. Start learning. Tackle one at a time. I'd start with the programming language itself such as C#. Spend 1 month just focusing on C# as much as can writing program after program. Learn by doing.
  
• Now move on to the next skill on your list and start learning it and integrating it into your C# projects meaning you are now using both. Again spend 1 month on this. Learn by doing!
  
• Repeat again for the next skill on your list. Again spend 1 more month primarily focused on this 3rd skill but also using the 1st and 2nd skill just to a lesser degree. Learn by doing.

Now you can spend the next 3 months actually using these skills to create stuff... business apps or games depending on your preferences. Which I'd guess is games.

As someone mentioned above enter game jams and use your skills continually pushing yourself to master them. Use the game jam not to make great games but to showcase & stretch your skills.

When I say learn by doing of course you can find tutorials online and get some books. But the main thing is don't just read and watch... DO! Use the skills as much as you always trying to master them.

So you end up with 3 months of beginner experience from your focused learning and then maybe another 3 months of continued learning on a multitude of game jams... weekend game jams, 1 week game jams, 1 month game jams, etc.

At this point you've got 6 months of structured solid experience and should be at the end of the Beginner level and entering Intermediate. You can start checking into jobs at this point just to get a feel for how you are viewed. Kind of a skill assessment in a way.

And just keep pushing on and maybe by the 1 year or 1.5 years point you can land a job very much like the kind you have specifically been training yourself for although likely it will be at a junior level still that is fine. Because now you've got your foot in the door. And from this point it is onward and upward.

Note that during this later time (after the first 6 months of your training) you may also want to do a market test again and find a 4th skill to gain experience in. Basically you can always just look out there and see what is in demand and then train yourself specifically for that. I have done this most of my life and it works well.

 

Thanks so much for all of your replies.

I am not sure what kind of programmer I will be but I would like to be able to do any kind, BTW can I be a programmer if I only use Visual Programming? I would attend college because of structured-learning environment and the degree will come in handy some point.
Yes DOING IT is one way to learn and keep my skills up, I am not lack of self-teaching but lack of time.

I would appreciate if you check out my first game (collaboration). Link (for Web)

 

Not if you want to be a programmer who gets work, no.

 

No. Plenty of programmers use visual programming tools. But most of what you pay a programmer to do isn't covered by visual tools.

Visual tools are typically designed to let non programming subject matter experts do useful things. So an artist to connect events to animations. Or a chemical engineer to diagnose a fault in a control system.

They don't get around the need to actually write code, especially for non trivial tasks.

 

This isn't really accurate. Gov jobs usually equate 3 years of hands on experience to 1 year of formal education in a specific field related to the position. At higher levels (gov exec) they usually bump the requirement of hands on experience to 5 years to equal 1 year of education.

Huh, I never did that! Propelling out of a helicopter sounds a hella lot more fun than I had - rappelling from Blackhawks and UH-1 Hueys.

 

This is more of a question since I had no idea who to ask directly but I'm a senior in high school graduating this June, I want to become a video game level designer for unity, but i don't know what i'll need or how to gain much needed experience in this field, I've been searching online for where to start but can't seem to get an edge. If anyone can help me or explain it in steps please contact me at csnapier14@gmail.com

 

I just wanted to mention that some companies have strict(er) guidelines for GPA and stuff, even if you have the degree. Raytheon is one of them, so is Oracle. That being said I'm pretty sure you can know someone at the company too. C's may get you a degree, it does not always get you a job from an ad.

 

If you want to travel and work abroad then you need a degree unfortunately.
Without one, companies abroad won't have legal papers to justify the immigration law department why they're hiring you instead of hiring a local.
It's still possible, but almost impossible.

 

I just want to throw in that a lot of people who got jobs, especially good jobs without degree did so because they started long ago when cs degrees werent nearly as common. Since they ended up collecting years of experience, that trumped the lack of degree.

Now days, its much much harder to get started without a degree. And the jobs that won't screen you out immediately are going to be kinda sh*t.

It was much, much easier getting a good job w/o a cs degree in the early 2000s or even the 90s than it is now. When you hear stories about guys who have top tier jobs w/ no degree, they almost always got started in those easier times.

 

I find that getting my foot in the door as they’re closing it only annoys then further :-B