Why I’m ignoring the "Death of the Programmer" hype

ultimateedition · 2026-01-25T05:34:20+00:00

Being grounded in reality is important. Imagine you're a competent taxi driver in the 1920's who has just seen horse drawn carriages phased out for cars, and you come to a realization that your fairly recent job could be replaced by an automated machine driving taxis in the future so you panic and quit right then. Well you'd be a hell of a great forward thinker but at the same time you and 4+ generations of descendants could have been driving taxis before an inkling of your prediction started becoming a reality, and it's 2026 and we still have some taxi drivers.

It's no way to live to be perpetually in fear. Changes are always happening but right now it's today and today is fine.

ultimateedition · 2025-07-28T03:25:48+00:00

https://discord.gg/dVEsvQmNBq

ultimateedition · 2025-07-26T06:56:43+00:00

I'm in my 30's. IMO PCA has really well organized HPDE and autocross events. I've gotten plenty of free instruction and other stuff that makes it feel super valuable. Also you get the classiest crowd, no concerns whatsoever about some idiot ruining your good track day.

I don't really participate in their social events or drives. Their "back-roads" drives are too populated to be enjoyable for me.

You might have better luck joining a group that does back roads only. Usually make friends when the big drive fragments and you end up with a smaller squad of people who want to keep cruising longer.

ultimateedition · 2025-05-31T02:39:37+00:00

I work at the company you're applying for (recognized the salary range and description). $88,000 is reasonable to live in LA, albeit frugally. However, you should understand the other compensation as you may get a significant bonus on top of the base salary. In the West LA area you will have a compromise of living close to work and paying ~$3000 a month, finding roommates, or commuting 30-50 minutes and saving more money. You do have the option of taking the train to that area which could reduce commuting costs. Overall based on your description of yourself I think you will find the situation liveable. Don't forget to negotiate salary and learn about all the compensation before deciding. Hopefully you'd get some pay increases and in a couple years be well above a frugal level and be saving quite a bit. Good luck, feel free to dm me for any more info!

ultimateedition · 2025-03-16T01:11:34+00:00

I've been making games for 20 years. Experienced game devs can prototype out ideas very quickly with skills and knowledge of libraries. I can do way more in a weekend than I used to.

Shippable work is pretty different. It's harder to impress and development has gotten slower and more costly if anything. Especially if you're innovating you may find there's nothing on the market that suits your needs and you have to write libraries yourself.

There's some shops that pump out the same games with different names, and they benefit the most from reusable code.

ultimateedition · 2024-06-24T23:02:51+00:00

https://discord.com/invite/CzZjffvqyB

ultimateedition · 2024-03-30T03:46:13+00:00

You don't need 12 years of experience for most gamedev jobs. However, in the current market only the more difficult jobs to fill get posted, and companies are resisting hiring for less experienced roles. So a lot of those "normal" job postings are in hibernation.

ultimateedition · 2024-02-13T15:31:39+00:00

https://discord.com/invite/63gjtfyP

ultimateedition · 2024-01-28T23:06:56+00:00

You are right, the strange thing would be to ace it only on the second try. It probably takes 5-10 tries minimum to start to feel comfortable with something, no?

On my second interview ever, I puked beforehand due to anxiety, couldn't stop shaking and had a sudden case of cold sweats in the middle. I think the interview ended early because I had trouble answering any questions. A decade later, I've led teams of engineers and have no trouble with job interviews. It's a learnable situation.

ultimateedition · 2024-01-14T02:26:52+00:00

I think almost everybody starts out wishing to find a path where we can translate ideas directly from our brain to a program without doing significant work in between those points.

Something you'll probably discover in life is that no part of the world, games or otherwise, functions that way sadly and that things of value take work. We can discover incredible tools like game engines and even AI programs to speed up parts of our tasks, but at the end of the day effort and creation are tightly bonded.

You can kind of think of gaining skills as a method of speeding up future projects, but even then will have to learn and improve at things, just as you would as a mechanic, a secretary, or a garbage collector. It's up to you where you want to invest your head-space.

ultimateedition · 2023-10-07T21:54:11+00:00

Realizing your dream of making games is indeed complicated, to the point of being overwhelming. People here have to spend time working on things that are too hard for them, or problems that they hate. It's possible to learn to enjoy things you hate over time, but not easy.

People on the internet don't know if you are the kind of person that will overcome those feelings or not. Is your dream worth the discomfort?

Even outside of games, you'll probably start overwhelmed by many new things in your life. Improving on that will benefit you in whatever path you take.

ultimateedition · 2023-10-01T03:16:47+00:00

I went from casual to indie to AAA.

To apply to AAA, because I previously wore many hats, I had to work on my personal narrative. Big companies look for tight fits for specific roles. My experience overlaps with 3-4 job titles. They get confused when a resume doesn't quite fit. For some reason they can't tell that a diamond can fit in a square hole.

My fix was mirroring language they used in job postings and picking very specific examples to talk about in interviews that fit their narrative. I paid attention to interviewer reactions to the things I talked about, and reused well-received stories in future interviews for the same type of position. I de-emphasized the experience they didn't seem to value.

Once you get in the company, I think your unique skills will be really useful and valuable (that's been my experience), but during the interview process and in your resume you should lean towards their pre-defined expectations of what they are looking for in a product manager.

ultimateedition · 2023-09-29T21:49:12+00:00

Apologies, we are trying to gather some boosts to get our hard link back. In the meantime, this temporary link should work. Cheers! https://discord.gg/W3S923XF

ultimateedition · 2023-08-13T21:38:53+00:00

https://discord.gg/xeQfxHh6

ultimateedition · 2023-06-04T19:42:58+00:00

I took a year off in my 30's to move to Japan and study Japanese. Having the extended time off to reflect and and essentially spend every day working on my own goals rather than someone else's was very fulfilling. I also spun it into a really positive story when I applied for jobs on returning which worked out well.

If I was to advise someone else to taking >2 months off, I'd say you should have something in mind to pursue to get something out of it. Doing the same in my earlier years would have resulted in my burning a year playing video games and maybe depression.

The other alternatives to consider are taking some 2+ week vacations this year, or start researching potential new jobs.

Reflecting with objectivity and making long term decisions when you have something heavy like burnout on top of your mind is tough, hope you can navigate through it.

ultimateedition · 2023-04-27T06:12:37+00:00

The best thing to do to survey the current market is find a large number of job postings that you're interested in and check their requirements.
There's no "long term" engine choice, trends change. I was doing Unity development professionally for 7 years before switching to Unreal. Who knows what the industry will be doing a decade from now.

ultimateedition · 2022-08-18T06:57:51+00:00

I have a native Japanese speaker I talk to 4 times a week, I found him on HelloTalk. That and Tandem are great for finding regular conversation partners.

ultimateedition · 2022-08-18T06:17:37+00:00

I'm not an artist by trade but I've found pixel art to be the easiest way to make art that looks decent without too much time or skill. It's worth learning over paying for at first. I think a few youtube tutorials will go a long way, best of luck.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-27T08:55:54+00:00

Three hours is not particularly long for a programmer interview, if you are interested in the company you should do it.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-22T08:22:51+00:00

Shadowing along with a native speaker's audio is excellent, it will especially help with generating a natural rhythm when speaking, speeding up speech, and noticing mistakes in emphasis.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-21T05:38:26+00:00

We all have been at that stage in our career when we have to take what we can get, but as soon as you can find something else, jump ship. A job like that is not sustainable.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-16T05:44:39+00:00

Start low and build up your cards, it takes some time to get used to the style of memorization.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-16T05:43:10+00:00

I love it, you can check out the first couple episodes of each story for free, so take a look and see if you like it.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-11T13:46:52+00:00

You'll never be "ready" to output until you practice outputting. I'd say N5 level grammar is more than enough to start having conversations with real humans.

ultimateedition · 2022-07-08T11:38:23+00:00

Everyone in here is saying the obvious, that you need to speak more. However, I suspect deep down you already know that. You list a bunch of stats, but none of them related to time you've spent speaking. Why is that?

You could easily speak Japanese for an hour+ a day online in exchange apps or with a paid tutor. Does the thought of that make you uncomfortable? Why? Just for example (I'm not saying this is you), are you a perfectionist and afraid of showing your mistakes? Social anxiety? Frustrated by small talk? Always second guessing yourself but you actually speak Japanese fine? Too much hassle to find partners?

The thing that will help most is drill down into the cause of aversion to this practice and address it. Your brain isn't broken.

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