In my previous post, I mentioned that I had been submitting resumes to companies for the past several months of college. 5 months to be specific. About 10 applications were submitted. I was submitting resumes to big AAA companies: Rockstar, Blizzard, EA, Insomniac, etc. And I only got one nibble, which was receiving a gameplay programmer’s test from Insomniac.

I was estatic and thought I had a chance at getting the gameplay programmer position because at one point during Full Sail I heard a dude several months ahead of me talk about being accepted into Insomniac but turning it down because his wife didn’t want to move there. I ended up taking the test, which was pretty easy. Just memory stuff. But I fucked up one bit, and I didn’t get further into the application process.

All of this time wasted on applying for AAA game companies that everyone wants to work for made me realize I had to start applying for smaller game companies as well as software companies. So that’s what I did. I applied to several software companies, and from my recollection two game companies in California: Heavy Iron Studios and FarSight Studios.

Heavy Iron got back to me fast, which led to a phone interview that they said would be on C/C++. Because of this, I didn’t study 3D math, which was rusty as hell. There was 3D math on it. I bombed it. I actually got a collision test right but was so unsure that I thought I was wrong. Luckily, I got a programmers test later on, which was pretty difficult.

They weren’t interested in me though.

My failings on the phone interview made me determined to not make those same mistakes on the next interview that I had for FarSight, who also got back to me really fast.

On that phone interview with the lead gameplay programmer, I did so much better (one of the best who’s ever taken it they said). This led to me going to take the programmers test. But I had to fly to California to take it!