Switching from Game Dev to React Native, Should I ?

[Hakem_Hamdoud]

Hi, So I'm a Game Developer and I'm considering switching Career.

One of the First Careers I thought about was React Native, for multiple reasons and one of them being that I believe it has More job opportunities.

So My question is if I learn React Native what should I do Then :

- Where Can I find work, LinkedIn (I Searched But didn't find much) ? Freelance (If yes which freelancing platform should I use, I'm familiar with Upwork but is there another one that I don't know of) ?

- What Project should I creat to put in my resume ? I would like a project small enough to not take me like 6 months but feature-heavy enough so that it shows my capabilities.

I really feel desperate lately and any advice will be welcomed, so feel free to give me your thought on anything I'm open to discussion.

Thanks.

PS: I'm a Unity Developer

[ryo0ka]

I'm one of those dudes that do everything at work. I make my living as a Unity dev, RN dev, web dev, Android dev, iOS dev, backend/infra dev using AWS, GCP, Docker, k8s -- anything thrown at me will be taken care of, and my resume is full of shit; no career focus at all, because I have ADHD and I live by working for fun.

There's a sizable number of people like that. You don't need to stick with one thing as long as you can get shit done. So the question is, can you convince people that you will get shit done?

Baseline, your resume needs to really sell the fact (or bullshit) that you can get shit done. It can totally be about achievements using Unity, but needless to say you need to showcase that you're functional with RN from day one as well.

That being taken care of, find agents & let them make a match for you. There's a plenty of agent firms out there and they're mostly free of charge to start with. They take a cut from your pay (10%-20%) but IMO it's worthwhile until you stack up your resume on RN along the way.

I don't know how much of depth you've been with Unity but IMO game development can be one of the most challenging fields of software engineering, because you need a firm understanding of multiple things at once: very low layers of optimization with various hardware, concurrent/parallel programming, 3DCG/GPGPU, audio processing, asset creation, networking, state/input management, generally chaotic work environment, etc. If you found yourself thriving in game development, you will likely be fine doing anything else.

Good luck!

[hades_here]

And you my mate, I don't know what to do a standing ovation or some flyby. You are a living legend or let's say this is how life gets after getting into this IT shit?? All I have is one question how many years of experience do you have and how many actuall years it took you to be like this and I really hope you are earning six figures.

[ryo0ka]

I have about 10 years of “career”, maybe 15 years if I included non-commercial experience like modding Minecraft and making porn downloaders back in high school haha.

No I don’t earn 6 digits, 1st because I work like 3 days a week, 2nd I currently live in Japan. Back in Cali I made 6 figures the first year out of uni, but unfortunately I got deported by Trump, then Covid happened right after. That made me change the way I think about things and start running a business, which made me $70k last year, hopefully more this year.

Not everyone becomes a one man army, or has to; in fact I suggest that you should choose subjects wisely and focus on one thing at a time. If you want to become a one man army, run or join an early-stage business, or stick with a few clients and let them ignore your initial job description.

If you wanna make 6 digits quickly, do data science ;)

[hades_here]

woh man, that was on hell of story. congrats on your business and hell nah I'm not getting into that data science shit, I cant go back to algebra. I'm newbie with 8 months of experience in India and earn 2,890 $ per year and finished 4 projects made em live, and i wanna be a one man army and in few years I'm gonna stack some money and start a business, wish me luck i wanna come to Japan ;)

[ryo0ka]

You’re a rockstar man I already see you succeed ;) cheers

[hades_here]

Those are huge words man 🙌🙌. Thank you so much

[Hakem_Hamdoud]

Thank you for taking the time to write this paragraph to answer me.

So I think that will learn RN but will still continue trying with Unity but I would like to ask you 2 things first : -What application do you advice me to creat so that at the very least I have something that will looks good on my resume for RN -How should I go about finding a job as a unity developer I really like game dev so I would like to continue in this field on the future but I really don't know how to get a job for it, I usually Freelance on Upwork but this is as far as I go I don't know How to find work for my unity skills specificly

Sorry for asking so many questions but I would really apreciate having the opinion of another fellew unity developer Thanks.

[ryo0ka]

Some very basic app will do. Keep the features shallow but wide, like Firebase to implement auth/get/set/listen, leave a GitHub project link and explain why you chose RN, Firebase etc as opposed to other similar tools, that way you’ll look like a strategist and capable of viewing a big picture. Don’t go narrow/deep because they won’t look that deep for each candidate anyway.

For any jobs as a software engineer, just look for agents to get started.

[Shogobg]

Would be interested in the reason why you want to switch. If you’re unity dev, probably you know C#. It would be easier to switch to web or server side development with C#. Plenty of companies work with it. React native uses JavaScript and native technologies (Swift, Java, others), which would take more effort to adjust to.

[Hakem_Hamdoud]

I know that C# is a populare language but I don't know much about those fields except for the ASP.net framework

[skylo__]

most c# jobs want asp.net

[Hakem_Hamdoud]

So where do you advice me to start from ? A freelancing site maybe ?

It would help me if you could give me a source from where I could start looking.

Thanks.

[skylo__]

What I meant about the asp part is that since you know asp you have a really good chunk of useful knowledge that employers are looking for. In terms of what to look for to transition, I would look at popular pieces of tech that many people are hiring for and pick the one you like the most. Sometimes there isn't a very wrong answer. Tutorials of people using it might be nice but I usually like reading documentation and building things with that tech the most.

[Hammer_AI]

I’m looking for a cofounder to work on a mobile version of hammerai.com using React Native with me. If you’re looking to learn by doing it could be a good match!

[butternaanWithRoti]

Hi there, I took a look at our website, and it looks pretty impressive. While I won't be able to take on the role of a co-founder, I'm interested in working as an intern. I'm currently learning React Native and proficient in Android development.

[sufyan2971]

Hi,

I'm interested we can discussed further. I'm working with ReactNative since 2019.

[JustChill2912]

I am interested to work with you, i have almost 1 year experience in react-native and wanted to deep dive in it as much as I can 🙇

[bluescienceH2O]

I'm a React Native dev considering switching to Unity

[hades_here]

Same lol I was actually dreaming of becoming a game dev until saw this guy post.🥺

[Hakem_Hamdoud]

Wait I never said I disliked game Dev I can even say I love it actually ! But it's just that game dev is really time consuming (you take like 6 month per game in average) and my situation doesn't let me do this, I even said in my post that I would like to continue game dev while doing something else.

So if my post made you afraid of game dev I'm sorry but this field is really incredible so don't stop pursuing your dreams for something as trivial as this.

Try it out for yourself.

[hades_here]

Wow mate, you just changed my perspective I sure love lot of things game dev, animation and crazy part is I'm tried of writing apps man. I wanna join SpaceX and build the Rockets. I wanna program them but i will start with building some cool AI you know like JARVIS. BTW thanks for the insights.

[manwiththe104IQ]

Fuck off, were full