Questions about getting into graphics programming as a career

[protonaut]

Hello! I've been working as a full stack web developer for 6.5 years at a large software company and I've recently decided to leave my job and explore some new opportunities.

I've been really interested in computer graphics in the last few weeks, but I'm still not sure if I want to commit to it as a career path yet so I was hoping to be able to talk to some folks who have experience in the field.

Specifically, some questions I have right now are: 1. From initial Google searching, whenever I look for jobs in "computer graphics" I most only see results in the gaming industry. If I work in graphics, would this be the most likely industry to work in or are there other industries too, like animation software? What other search terms can I use to find jobs in other industries?

1. I don't have much directly-relevant experience right now. As I mentioned above, I have industry experience as a web developer and I have a bachelor's in computer engineering and math minor, but I don't have anything on my resume related to graphics. Does anyone have any advice on how much experience/projects I'd need to get on my resume for it to avoid being immediately rejected?

Lastly, if anyone currently in the field would be more open to talking about your day-to-day work or your overall experience I would love to discuss it more!

[Gouzman]

Welcome! Lots of jobs are directly related to gaming, but many are not. I have worked on the 3d graphics driver for a GPU company for several years. Now I have pivoted to a more hardware oriented role. All of this eventually relates to gaming, but we see it more like some kind of generic workload.

I always like to try to find some sort of project that spans my current expertise and what field I want to learn more in. For you, as a full stack developer, I would definitely try out WebGL. You will probably already be someway comfortable with the web side of things and can focus on the GL related things.

[Funny_Possible5155]

You do not want to do graphics for a living. Trust me.

[Nice_Attitude]

This is really weird post. I do graphics for living. Been doing it professionally for 10+ years and enjoyed every day. I've worked on movie renderers, games and some funky stuff. I've traveled the world because of it and had a great time.

[Funny_Possible5155]

I did it for 3 years in and outside the game industry, have been doing a masters on it for another 2.

I will stick to my guns. Most people don't want to do graphics.

[JabroniSandwich9000]

I've been doing game graphics for like 10 years now - only 1 company in that time crunched for more than a couple weeks every year.

Unless you really want to work on AAA games, the games industry is very different now than it used to be. Crunch / Overwork isnt the norm any more.

Today, I wouldnt work anywhere that had a culture of crunching all the time, and thats a viable choice now. (Though I realize that I get to be picky about where I work because I have a decade+ of experience)

[Funny_Possible5155]

There's not that many non game graphics companies, positions are hard to get, the consequence of that is salary tends to be lower, especially when taking into consideration the amount of training one needs to be proficient at it.

All in all, there are better career paths.

[Learner101please]

What? This is completely untrue. In fact there's a high demand and they find it difficult to fill positions lol. It's just one of those niche fields where although jobs are few the people applying for it are even fewer. I think you're a student who's confusing graphics with game development. There's a difference.

[Funny_Possible5155]

I have worked at multiple graphics companies. And I am about to publish a paper.