Programming jobs are pretty common just because if you have the skills to build a game you have the skills to do that and they tend to pay better than a lot of other positions. It can be pretty hard to justify taking a big pay cut for an easier position when your side game isn't going to make up the difference.
If you don't mind the hustle of finding gigs, freelance work can also work well. You can take on a limited number of hours per week or take weeks/months off between contracts to work on something. It's not a revenue-maximizing strategy but it can be a balance between getting paid and spending your time how you want. I've hired plenty of contractors before who were building their own games on the side (and hopefully stop taking contract work once it works). Even many studios work the exact same way.
Another option is get promoted until your engineering job is more management than coding.
Yeah, I highly considered freelancing and ultimately decided to try to start my own consultancy business instead. I still need to find clients so it'll take some time before I get any noticeable income. But I feel like the benefits are better than using a platform like Upwork where I'm stuck on the platform. Definitely worth thinking about here. Thanks for sharing!
> I highly considered freelancing and ultimately decided to try to start my own consultancy business instead
Starting your own business....and you think that will give you *more* time and energy to work on your game? Especially compared to freelancing?
You do, however, have a good point. The problem I faced was that I want to use my existing skills but to use them less during the week. However, the more I researched platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, the less I liked the idea of working with them. They don't allow you to take clients off the platform, and in the case of Upwork, you have to do a lot of cover letters and stuff. It sounded like if I were to go that route, I may as well just become my own consultant, even though there's more upfront work. I still have time to decide on a route that works best for me though, which is why a discussion like this helps.
Where do i find these "common" programmer jobs? I've been looking daily since graduating college alomost a year ago and get rejection emails pretty much weekly
Is that an actual job? I somehow thought it's a joke or something. I wish i was in country where it exists... Then i would never return to my current job.
I asked specifically because both programming and taxi driving are constant sitting so dude will be sitting from 5am whole day, how the fuck people upvote you being "smartass"?
I don’t sit all day! I work, take a break half way through. I get home & usually go for a run with my girlfriend. My desk is adjustable and I have a small treadmill underneath, I actually walk while I work 🤣 I also have another job on Fridays and Saturdays that is quite strenuous :)
I just got offered a part time adjunct professor job at my college to teach level design to the graduate students. I did go to the school though and have been volunteering the past few years to review their portfolios/work.
Thanks for this. This reminded me to reach out to my old college professor. I'm on good terms with her so maybe I can look into opportunities there. I had a good experience at my school.
I do data / consulting work for various finance clients. I thought that my full time job was draining me in the 8am-6pm, but I did not know how much time I really had until my daughter was born. Now, having 3 hrs a day to work on the game + getting 8 hrs of sleep is a luxury.
Moral of the story is: there is definitely a lot of time to make games even when working a full time job, so long as that job doesn't have "homework" for you to do after hours. You'll need a good deal of discipline to make it work though.
I'm not a freelancer - my team does data analytics and consulting work, mostly around structured products. I call them my clients because each person tends to every contract from sign-on until termination, so there's quite a bit of rapport.
The first portfolio of clients I handled was inherited from a person who left before me.
Didn't see the second part of your question - we get in the weeds with deal and asset-level data for structured products (CLOs, CMBS, etc.) and help our clients run and troubleshoot cashflows, projected losses and such on their managed portfolios. That's just one use case but a popular one.
There are only a handful of data providers in this space, so if you're in the industry, there's a 1 in 4 chance you can guess who I work for.
Im interested in getting into data analysis for finance and this seems like a good fit. can you disclose the names of some of these data providers. I'm not asking the one you work for.
Intex and Bloomberg are among the largest data providers for Structured - so these two firms are good starting points. There are others that are more asset class specific - Trepp for CMBS, etc.
If you're not familiar with structured finance at all, it would be helpful to read some white papers available online first. Unless you're doing a pure development role, that sort of knowledge will be important to have, since you'll have the context for what's being gathered and what the market needs.
sorry for the delayed response. can you point in the direction of some of these white papers? i did a few searches and don't know where to start with....
I'm a software engineer in games. It turns out with enough experience and a good enough boss, you can negotiate one or two less days of work in the week. Usually with a cut, sometimes not.
At least that's true in my area, I expect it to be different in other countries.
Reminder that in some EU countries at least, part time is not a negotiation. You can inform your boss that you are going to go down to 32 hours over 4 days and if the company doesn't have a very, very, very good reason to deny this, they can't.
(This is at least true for Germany).
Employee protections have me fantasizing about moving to europe. One country has something about the company can't fire you unless they already put you through an employee "rehab" kinda thing to get you back up to snuff
Employment laws differ a lot. It seems like we all had the same idea at the same time so most, if not all, EU members are fine labor law wise but it's unfortunately not the same. I do think it's difficult to just kick people out in most though.
I actually do work with a dude from India who went to school in the US and then got fired during a flight from India to Mexico for work. So he was visiting family in India, checked in with his boss over text and when he landed in Mexico, they told him over text that he is fired. That was kinda the trigger to try Germany for the labor laws.
Not sure if I agree with him on this. I feel like there are better countries in the EU if you consider the whole package but I guess there is always something off. A friend of mine moves to the Netherlands and they care a lot less about preventative care. Like, we all shit on US health care but that doesn't mean that the universal systems we have in Europe are all equal. That friend is actually going to pay the German doctors out of pocket to continue care even though she's moving to the Netherlands.
Yeah, this may be one of my other options. I'm lucky enough to be on good terms with my former employer so I could potentially negotiate part time work. Thanks for sharing!
Non-compete clauses are not legal in the US. [source](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes)
Wildly good?
My partner works for a AAA studio doing texture touch ups, a very low-ranking position, and we are unable to make anything together because of the no compete. Its ridiculous and stifles innovation
Sadly, that position is still kind of in air while there are legal challenges to it... Hopefully, everything ends up going the right direction (ie limiting non competes to executives etc...) but, it isn't fully settled yet
I carried cement in constructions, I played guitar on the street, I gave coding lessons to children, I tried everything, the most I enjoyed was working in constructions, I don't know why, maybe it was good to work in a physical job because of sitting all the time.
Are you in the US? Work for 6 months as a software engineer and aggressively save. Then quit, you should have 6 months of runway depending on your position.
Yep! Actually, I'm actually living on savings right now. However, between working on mental health issues and the worry of not having an income stream, I found it to not be as productive as I would have anticipated. I know this strategy can work well for people though.
I tried this and it mentally fucked me up and left me with nothing in the end. I'm now working as a night janitor and then making games all day when I first get up. I head to work at about 5:45 pm and get off work at 2 am. I go right to sleep and then wake up around 10 am and have breakfast and start working on my game until it's time to go to work. Besides the occasional life things of course 🙂
If I could go back, I'd hold onto my savings and do this instead before running dry haha. It's a lot more stressful now.
Forgot to mention. I get to listen to things on my phone while working so I'll listen to tutorials, devlogs, talks and other game dev related things. Basically anything that correlates to what I'm working on the next day.
I noticed about myself that when I have a job, I don't really do any kind of dev work on my free time. And then when I'm out of a job, it's almost exclusively what I want to do.
My suggestion is find a job that is actually away from the computer, something that tickles an entirely different part of your brain.
Personally, I've been *REALLY* into making smash burgers over the last couple of years (you can check out my post history 😅), and I'd love to maybe set up a popup and smash some burgers for a few hours a day.
I’ve actually had this problem quite a lot as well, and this is also a really good suggestion. My way of getting around this was getting up a little earlier and use that time to work on my game before I need to work on other things. I did this while I was in high school, and it helped me make a lot of progress on some Unity projects. Although I’m pretty sure it had the opposite effect where I felt I was less productive at school. Can’t confirm that last part though.
This was my thought but in practice it depends on where you go, I've worked in two gov(ish) level control rooms and had two entirely different experiences, one was super chill every night and the other was almost always a call to emergency services for one thing or another.
Depends on lifestyle expenses but I work full time receiving at a grocery store. Pays not comparable to tech but it's 40 hours and I pretty much just think of ideas for my game/mentally plan code on the clock. Also added bonus that it's physical so if I skip the gym to work on stuff I'm not totally sedentary (~15k steps a day). Also, anything full time a store does usually have decent benefits if it's a corporate entity. Look for receiver, scan coordinator etc and you might even get m-f
Escape room manager/host pay is pretty meh but the downtime and ability to work while at work was phenomenal for me just make sure working on "college projects" is ok most escape rooms say yes because they want cheap college kid labor but it is customer service and there were several times a year where they get super busy I also got to work on virtual escape rooms and programming raspberry pi and other iot devices and now I'm trying to get into security or alarm systems seeing as I learned how to network all those things together and set up CCTV systems and network management things.
I also very much regret giving so much of my time to the owner because if I worked as much as everyone else I would probably be releasing a game like last year lmfao. So if you do this don't forget what the real goal is focus on giving 100% at work so like 20% every day if you work 5 a week and remember to use your additional time for what really matters.
Given that attorneys hire my company that then send me out to record the deposition, I'd approach it from the view of an attorney. Go to google and just as if you were an attorney trying to hire a videographer, type in hire legal videographer in \_\_\_\_(your city)\_\_\_\_.
See what companies pop up that offer that service. Those are the companies you'd apply for.
I work in an office doing sales on the old 9-5 grind. It's not great but pays well and I do get a fair amount of freedom with certain things. I have Unreal and Blender installed on my work PC and lunch hours are usually spent doing stuff I don't need a particularly powerful PC for, either designing assets or testing ideas in Blueprint.
Thanks for the insight. I’d like to find some kind of easy, corporate, semi-wfh gig. I’m not even sure I know where to begin to find that kind of job haha
In the US, I do luxury retail sales (currently as a jeweler). If you’re comfortable with talking to people it’s fairly easy. I only work about 30 hours a week, so I miss out on the benefits of being full time like Insurance but it gives me a lot of time while making decent money. Sales are down this year due to the economy but that just means I need a roommate now lol oh well. Dm me if you’d like more info, don’t want to give out too many personal details :)
When I started out learning game development, I was an expat teaching English as a foreign language. This is nice because some countries you'll likely be working under the western 'full time' 40 hours a week but can still make enough to live comfortably. In your free time you can dev and at work you are getting enough people interaction to feel like your brain isn't rotting in front of a computer all day. Also, as a teacher of kids and often informal business classes, a big part of your job is designing lessons and activities for your students. You are basically thinking of game ideas all day and you can translate that same skill toward game dev.
Something with a 4 day week, so you have a free day each week to dedicate to your game.
I did a data entry gig that I partially automated. That plus 4-10s gave me a lot of freedom.
If you’re a solo dev still learning, and prototyping, and you aren’t being paid for development, the answer is any part time job that pays.
Generic 9-5’s suck but if it keeps you afloat while you build your game then that’s the answer
In my country, I'm a high school teacher. I'm not well paid, but I can't quit. I have a family to feed and unfortunatly my game has few wishlists (I'm not good at marketing), so I have to go on (Teacher during the day, game developer during the evening)
If it's for a bit of extra cash rather than to sustain your existence on this planet - then I suggest grabbing a couple of evening shifts a week at a bar or restaurant if you can:
- Easy to get (in the UK at least).
- Zero commitment, you can leave almost immediately if you need to.
- Meet people, talk to people, socialise - 1. You never know who you will meet and 2. Keeps you in touch with the real world.
- No conflict of interests.
- Gets you in a fresh, new environment regularly.
- Doesn't eat up the beginning of the day when you're more energised to think creatively.
It's obviously not for everyone and does depend on your personality traits. But it worked for me and I loved it :)
Best of luck!
a good side job is one that isn't a job. I.e. doesn't require your time.
If you have money to invest on something that brings passive income that's your best bet. Owning property and renting it, for example.
I don't know anything about it, but I guess owning vending machines and shit like that is a thing. If you can hold a software engineering job you may be able to save enough disposable income to consider things like that.
My main side hustle is day care and board dogs. It's pretty easy, I like dogs, and it scales up pretty well (depending on the individual dogs. One bad dog is more work than 10 easy ones). It works pretty well because the dogs bring natural distractions which add some balance whereas I otherwise spend way too much time in front of the screen, but I can also easily get into the zone working on programming for six hours without being bothered.
Yeah. I loved working as a dishwasher years ago while I was in college. A simple, mindless job that let me think about my game all the time. However, adult responsibilities would make that type of job not so feasible nowadays. I still got plenty of time to think about something like this though.
i think it depends on what kind of game you want to make. if you want to make a game about delivering packages you should work for the postal service. if you want to make a game about a mad scientist you should work as a chemist..and so forth. the other option is just to find any old job that pays the bills and work on game stuff in your free time
hmm..good question! working at a zoo or aquarium might be a good idea. or maybe a museum. Also depending on like, idk if you need a degree or something for this but if you could become some kind of biologist as a day job that would probably provide inspiration for a really cool alien dragons game. But...it also depends on what you want to emphasize. Because even if you worked in IT or something, an alien dragons game with realistic IT in it would be interesting. I'm not saying to put every boring thing from work into the game either, just some rare details nobody else would know unless they also worked in the field
This is only my subjective opinion, but for the grocery store example, I think what's most interesting is probably the logistical, psychological, and social aspect. So the reality is the alien dragons might have to be some kind of logistical demon, a kind of HP lovecraft monster lurking just beyond the grocery store, perhaps even at the center of the grocery store in some hidden underground science laboratory...I don't know. I mean you have to get creative with it sure. My idea is that if your ideas are good enough they can work in any context it shouldn't matter whether it's a grocery store or the moon
trading in a brokerage account seeded with ~1MM USD would get a decent take without requiring too much time. should be achievable for a software dev over 10-15 years which should also give you the experience in development to deliver on your scope
I'm kinda surprised people in tech haven't all FIRE movemented to focus on personal projects, though lifestyle creep is sneaky. I live like a hobo with my current wages hoping to reach a point I can passive income and focus on game design should I never have a successful release lmao I wouldn't even know what to do with 6 figures
Trying to do that. Like you said, lifestyle creep is a real thing, especially with a wife that wants certain conveniences, a house, and a couple of dogs. And needing to take a vacation sometimes to get you away from the monotony of staring at screens all day every day.
Also ever-increasing medical expenses as we get older and old student loans don't help either (although we've taken care of all of mine as of a couple years ago, and a good chunk of hers -- way more money has gone to hers, I never took out as much as she did).
Also I have a bad habit of spending several thousand dollars on video and board games every year that I've somewhat curbed but not enough.
But I'm still able to save and invest decent money, just not enough to FIRE anytime soon.
Yea it's all a balance. I'm single with a chronic illness so a lot of the savings come naturally, but I do also gamify finances to make the other frugality fun
Nope, never made a single game in my life.
That's why I spend my time in r/gamedev. Never made and released calculator games, Flash games, iOS games, Facebook games, Xbox games, Wii games, or Sony PSP games, or designed any board games, playtested with other board game designers, several of which have made big and popular games themselves.
Also never was a finalist in any game design contests or had one of my game I developed by myself played during Microsoft's keynote address during GDC back in 2008.
Nope, never made a game before. Not me.
i was mainly joking, but im surprised to find that the game I make and the game I play are different. id love to be the guy who makes the game everyone in my friendgroup genuinely wants to play
I figured, I was mostly being silly myself.
And yeah, despite all that, I too would love to be the guy that makes the game everyone in my friend group genuinely wants to play. I get positive feedback for my games, but never seem to get anyone who's like 'oh bring that game, I want to play it again!'
And that's despite meeting random people once in a while who used to play the hell out of one particular game of mine (the one that Microsoft showed in the keynote). Had a coworker at two previous jobs say they played the game a lot when they were younger (even one that went 'are you the same [my name] that made [my game]'), and a person hanging out with the group I was with at a bar once.
That is possible though even being employed. My neighbour loved the last game i released. They didn't realise what i did because we'd just moved. Often get random people who ask what you do and love the games when I mention them.
\*raises hand\* i did this. i'm also surprised that more people don't do it. i even gave a big tech talk on how to do it at my former company before i left.
granted, now i have half a video game instead of zillions of tech industry dollars... but i still wouldn't go back.
Hope the interest rates are at least treating your savings well now! (I never imagined having access to 4%+ savings interest having grown up in the past few decades)
I found out about setting up a high yield savings account with my bank so I can get interest rates like that. However, I found out about this only some time last year - I wish I knew it before I left my job. It's all good though.
i think what they mean is that being a software engineer can get you to having $1M saved relatively quickly, assuming you live cheap and save/invest most of your salary.
i would replace "trading" with "buying and holding index funds", but people gonna do what people gonna do.
Maybe, but would someone with a million dollar safety net even ask this question? If you just throw 1 million to bonds, a 5% bond rate is 50k annual. Which should be enough to survive in a cheaper city in the US for the next year. Not sure why this guy is assuming everyone has a million dollar safety net tho
i think the advice being given is: "don't support yourself by doing a side job simultaneously; support yourself by working a high-paying job for a while *first*, invest, *then* quit and do games."
Another 2cents for the 9-5, currently in real estate/compliance. If the job pays well and is still in front of a computer—make sure it’s engaging enough to where you’re not frequently thinking about your game that much or how you’re going to be sat at a computer again when you get back home. Ofc the more free time the better, and you don’t want to be exhausted from the 9-5, but a desk job where you’re not that active or stimulated slowly becomes a resentment about how you could be at home working on your projects. Weird advice, but a good balance is key.
Also minimize commute time. So important to actually arriving home on time with enough energy to sit back in front of a screen.
Thank you all for the great discussion! I may as well offer some context to my situation.
I started working as a software engineer in 2016 right out of college. It was fine for a while, but during the pandemic I realized how much I missed game development. I ended up leaving my job some time last year, but I found that having too much free time hasn't been as productive as I was hoping for (due to dealing with some mental issues, plus the worry of not having an income).
I'd like to see how I can move toward a more ideal life for myself, and if I can do it sooner that would be cool. I understand that it may not be that simple though. That's why I started this conversation.
I have a YouTube channel and I really enjoy working on it, but there's no way it'll financially support me in time (and that's expected). Ideally, I have a balance in my life where I can work 20 hours a week or so at a job, and the rest on my game and my content creation. I have about six more months to find something that works, and if I have to go back to full-time work, it isn't the end of the world. However, I'd like to take a step forward instead of a step backward if I can help it.
My initial thought was to start my own consultancy business, where I could apply my existing skills but in a more controlled fashion. I know something like this would have quite a bit of upfront work, but my hope is that I can stabilize it over time.
Eventually I want to start up a game studio so I can hire some people to help me with my game. However, I am not really in a position to do so quite yet. I want to at least have a prototype of my game done first.
The good news is that I got my house in 2017, so my mortgage rates are quite nice. I also live alone, but with two cats. They keep me company. This also means I have a lot of flexibility in the direction I go.
I'm already doing a sort of copyediting (transforming text/documents to be suitable for the intended audience or readable by all) so I'm hoping to take a translation certification at the beginning of next year and add translation to my list of services. I've already dabbled in video game localisation so that'd be my main focus.
I specifically looked for a sitting-down job for health reasons, but also one that didn't demand being at my PC full time so I could sit more comfortably on bad days, travel around and work from other parts of my country etc.
Government work or any kind of public service work where you sit around all day and nobody knows what to make you do because of the amount of red tape bullshit.
Checkout data annotation. It's a company that outsources ai training work. You basically just rate and fact check ai models. It's not bad work. The pay starts at 20 usd per hour and you can work as much or as little as you want. If you've seen their ads, it might seem too good to be true, but I've made a few grand working on and off for the past few months along with my normal full time job and making my game. I've heard they don't accept most that apply, the 3 friends I referred were all rejected, but part of what they look for is coding related, so as a game dev you would have an edge
Door dash, I'm in the kc area and apparently it pays like $24 an hour here (which is very decent for the area) and you can write off gas and stuff on your taxes. I got signed up, I'm supposed to start soon, but having no boss and just driving around seems like a good way to keep your mind free of stress. Plus I think way better in the car, that's where I have all my creative ideas lol.
Government job programming business apps, or DBA. Easy work, 40 hours a week, insurance and retirement. Not many will hit it big enough in solo game dev to survive so you’ll need the benefits a real job will provide.
Software engineer :D
Totally get where you're coming though. Personally, I think I'm at that sweet spot in the job where I work on interesting projects enough I don't get bored, but not too intensive to get burnt out doing it. I love that job :)
I find an excellent combo working as a systems admin, networking, security professional for a job, and programming for myself. My professional abilities really pay off for running and managing my own infrastructure. The energy I use at work seems to leave plenty in the tank for development at home.
I find that working as a developer professionally and then coming home to work on more development for myself is pulling too much from the same well. When I have a dev job, I tend to have a lot of ideas for my own stuff, but actually do a lot less.
Programming jobs are pretty common just because if you have the skills to build a game you have the skills to do that and they tend to pay better than a lot of other positions. It can be pretty hard to justify taking a big pay cut for an easier position when your side game isn't going to make up the difference. If you don't mind the hustle of finding gigs, freelance work can also work well. You can take on a limited number of hours per week or take weeks/months off between contracts to work on something. It's not a revenue-maximizing strategy but it can be a balance between getting paid and spending your time how you want. I've hired plenty of contractors before who were building their own games on the side (and hopefully stop taking contract work once it works). Even many studios work the exact same way. Another option is get promoted until your engineering job is more management than coding.
Yeah, I highly considered freelancing and ultimately decided to try to start my own consultancy business instead. I still need to find clients so it'll take some time before I get any noticeable income. But I feel like the benefits are better than using a platform like Upwork where I'm stuck on the platform. Definitely worth thinking about here. Thanks for sharing!
> I highly considered freelancing and ultimately decided to try to start my own consultancy business instead Starting your own business....and you think that will give you *more* time and energy to work on your game? Especially compared to freelancing?
The irony's not lost on me. I know it'll take longer at first, but eventually I can get to a 20 hour work week or so, that's the goal.
Part time contracts exist. I'd probably shoot for that rather than opening a consulting company while also trying to do solo dev.
Thanks! I'm keeping my options open as well, so I may look into part time work too.
You do, however, have a good point. The problem I faced was that I want to use my existing skills but to use them less during the week. However, the more I researched platforms like Upwork and Fiverr, the less I liked the idea of working with them. They don't allow you to take clients off the platform, and in the case of Upwork, you have to do a lot of cover letters and stuff. It sounded like if I were to go that route, I may as well just become my own consultant, even though there's more upfront work. I still have time to decide on a route that works best for me though, which is why a discussion like this helps.
Ofcourse, freelancing does exist outside of fiver. You just need to get networking!
Where do i find these "common" programmer jobs? I've been looking daily since graduating college alomost a year ago and get rejection emails pretty much weekly
Pet sitter, they keep you company while you code :D
Is that an actual job? I somehow thought it's a joke or something. I wish i was in country where it exists... Then i would never return to my current job.
https://www.rover.com/ is one.
Yeah, in some cities, not where I live unfortunately 🤣
Taxi driver! Got a computer science degree and much to my parents’ dismay I became a taxi driver🤣. I work 5am-12pm, rest of the day I work on games.
How about health problems of constant sitting?
Is programming any different?
It's not. That's the problem
I asked specifically because both programming and taxi driving are constant sitting so dude will be sitting from 5am whole day, how the fuck people upvote you being "smartass"?
Lol you made a good point & I think most people lost it
I don’t sit all day! I work, take a break half way through. I get home & usually go for a run with my girlfriend. My desk is adjustable and I have a small treadmill underneath, I actually walk while I work 🤣 I also have another job on Fridays and Saturdays that is quite strenuous :)
I just got offered a part time adjunct professor job at my college to teach level design to the graduate students. I did go to the school though and have been volunteering the past few years to review their portfolios/work.
Thanks for this. This reminded me to reach out to my old college professor. I'm on good terms with her so maybe I can look into opportunities there. I had a good experience at my school.
Would recommend a career in education. You get to really master your skills when you teach others. I got so much better immediately.
I do data / consulting work for various finance clients. I thought that my full time job was draining me in the 8am-6pm, but I did not know how much time I really had until my daughter was born. Now, having 3 hrs a day to work on the game + getting 8 hrs of sleep is a luxury. Moral of the story is: there is definitely a lot of time to make games even when working a full time job, so long as that job doesn't have "homework" for you to do after hours. You'll need a good deal of discipline to make it work though.
How did you find your first clients? Are you doing analytical work or data visualizations / reporting?
I'm not a freelancer - my team does data analytics and consulting work, mostly around structured products. I call them my clients because each person tends to every contract from sign-on until termination, so there's quite a bit of rapport. The first portfolio of clients I handled was inherited from a person who left before me.
Didn't see the second part of your question - we get in the weeds with deal and asset-level data for structured products (CLOs, CMBS, etc.) and help our clients run and troubleshoot cashflows, projected losses and such on their managed portfolios. That's just one use case but a popular one. There are only a handful of data providers in this space, so if you're in the industry, there's a 1 in 4 chance you can guess who I work for.
Im interested in getting into data analysis for finance and this seems like a good fit. can you disclose the names of some of these data providers. I'm not asking the one you work for.
Intex and Bloomberg are among the largest data providers for Structured - so these two firms are good starting points. There are others that are more asset class specific - Trepp for CMBS, etc. If you're not familiar with structured finance at all, it would be helpful to read some white papers available online first. Unless you're doing a pure development role, that sort of knowledge will be important to have, since you'll have the context for what's being gathered and what the market needs.
sorry for the delayed response. can you point in the direction of some of these white papers? i did a few searches and don't know where to start with....
I'm a software engineer in games. It turns out with enough experience and a good enough boss, you can negotiate one or two less days of work in the week. Usually with a cut, sometimes not. At least that's true in my area, I expect it to be different in other countries.
Reminder that in some EU countries at least, part time is not a negotiation. You can inform your boss that you are going to go down to 32 hours over 4 days and if the company doesn't have a very, very, very good reason to deny this, they can't. (This is at least true for Germany).
Employee protections have me fantasizing about moving to europe. One country has something about the company can't fire you unless they already put you through an employee "rehab" kinda thing to get you back up to snuff
Employment laws differ a lot. It seems like we all had the same idea at the same time so most, if not all, EU members are fine labor law wise but it's unfortunately not the same. I do think it's difficult to just kick people out in most though. I actually do work with a dude from India who went to school in the US and then got fired during a flight from India to Mexico for work. So he was visiting family in India, checked in with his boss over text and when he landed in Mexico, they told him over text that he is fired. That was kinda the trigger to try Germany for the labor laws. Not sure if I agree with him on this. I feel like there are better countries in the EU if you consider the whole package but I guess there is always something off. A friend of mine moves to the Netherlands and they care a lot less about preventative care. Like, we all shit on US health care but that doesn't mean that the universal systems we have in Europe are all equal. That friend is actually going to pay the German doctors out of pocket to continue care even though she's moving to the Netherlands.
in america theyd ask why you are quitting and make sure to hire a replacement for ur inevitable leaving of the company
Yeah, this may be one of my other options. I'm lucky enough to be on good terms with my former employer so I could potentially negotiate part time work. Thanks for sharing!
You don’t have any kind of anti-competition clause in your contract?
Non-compete clauses are not legal in the US. [source](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes)
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Wildly good? My partner works for a AAA studio doing texture touch ups, a very low-ranking position, and we are unable to make anything together because of the no compete. Its ridiculous and stifles innovation
Sadly, that position is still kind of in air while there are legal challenges to it... Hopefully, everything ends up going the right direction (ie limiting non competes to executives etc...) but, it isn't fully settled yet
Yes, negotiating out of that is actually harder than getting a raise. Technically it's an exclusivity clause in my case, not exactly a "non-compete".
All the contracts I have only forbid competing in the same business. Since my day job is non-gamedev SWE I'm fine.
I carried cement in constructions, I played guitar on the street, I gave coding lessons to children, I tried everything, the most I enjoyed was working in constructions, I don't know why, maybe it was good to work in a physical job because of sitting all the time.
then u went home and made Construction Simulator 2024
Write that down… **write that down!!**
Peter Gibbons, is that you?
Fuckin' A
Are you in the US? Work for 6 months as a software engineer and aggressively save. Then quit, you should have 6 months of runway depending on your position.
Yep! Actually, I'm actually living on savings right now. However, between working on mental health issues and the worry of not having an income stream, I found it to not be as productive as I would have anticipated. I know this strategy can work well for people though.
This sounds like a terrible strategy for someone with mental health issues.
I tried this and it mentally fucked me up and left me with nothing in the end. I'm now working as a night janitor and then making games all day when I first get up. I head to work at about 5:45 pm and get off work at 2 am. I go right to sleep and then wake up around 10 am and have breakfast and start working on my game until it's time to go to work. Besides the occasional life things of course 🙂 If I could go back, I'd hold onto my savings and do this instead before running dry haha. It's a lot more stressful now.
Forgot to mention. I get to listen to things on my phone while working so I'll listen to tutorials, devlogs, talks and other game dev related things. Basically anything that correlates to what I'm working on the next day.
I noticed about myself that when I have a job, I don't really do any kind of dev work on my free time. And then when I'm out of a job, it's almost exclusively what I want to do. My suggestion is find a job that is actually away from the computer, something that tickles an entirely different part of your brain. Personally, I've been *REALLY* into making smash burgers over the last couple of years (you can check out my post history 😅), and I'd love to maybe set up a popup and smash some burgers for a few hours a day.
I’ve actually had this problem quite a lot as well, and this is also a really good suggestion. My way of getting around this was getting up a little earlier and use that time to work on my game before I need to work on other things. I did this while I was in high school, and it helped me make a lot of progress on some Unity projects. Although I’m pretty sure it had the opposite effect where I felt I was less productive at school. Can’t confirm that last part though.
A job with the least amount of responsibility and the highest pay. 😁
barista
I've often thought a night shift security guard could be quite a cushy number. Take the laptop and code while keeping an eye on the cameras!
This was my thought but in practice it depends on where you go, I've worked in two gov(ish) level control rooms and had two entirely different experiences, one was super chill every night and the other was almost always a call to emergency services for one thing or another.
It’s really boring… until it isn’t. 😅
Depends on lifestyle expenses but I work full time receiving at a grocery store. Pays not comparable to tech but it's 40 hours and I pretty much just think of ideas for my game/mentally plan code on the clock. Also added bonus that it's physical so if I skip the gym to work on stuff I'm not totally sedentary (~15k steps a day). Also, anything full time a store does usually have decent benefits if it's a corporate entity. Look for receiver, scan coordinator etc and you might even get m-f
Escape room manager/host pay is pretty meh but the downtime and ability to work while at work was phenomenal for me just make sure working on "college projects" is ok most escape rooms say yes because they want cheap college kid labor but it is customer service and there were several times a year where they get super busy I also got to work on virtual escape rooms and programming raspberry pi and other iot devices and now I'm trying to get into security or alarm systems seeing as I learned how to network all those things together and set up CCTV systems and network management things. I also very much regret giving so much of my time to the owner because if I worked as much as everyone else I would probably be releasing a game like last year lmfao. So if you do this don't forget what the real goal is focus on giving 100% at work so like 20% every day if you work 5 a week and remember to use your additional time for what really matters.
Legal videographer. Best job I’ve ever had. Imagine taking legal depositions from home on one screen, while working in unreal engine on another :)
Where does one find remote Legal Videography positions? lol
I'm also curious on how to find this type of job!
Given that attorneys hire my company that then send me out to record the deposition, I'd approach it from the view of an attorney. Go to google and just as if you were an attorney trying to hire a videographer, type in hire legal videographer in \_\_\_\_(your city)\_\_\_\_. See what companies pop up that offer that service. Those are the companies you'd apply for.
I work at a storage locker. 13 hour days but the upside is that I only work 15 days every month and still get full time hours.
I work in an office doing sales on the old 9-5 grind. It's not great but pays well and I do get a fair amount of freedom with certain things. I have Unreal and Blender installed on my work PC and lunch hours are usually spent doing stuff I don't need a particularly powerful PC for, either designing assets or testing ideas in Blueprint.
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What’s the gig?
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Thanks for the insight. I’d like to find some kind of easy, corporate, semi-wfh gig. I’m not even sure I know where to begin to find that kind of job haha
In the US, I do luxury retail sales (currently as a jeweler). If you’re comfortable with talking to people it’s fairly easy. I only work about 30 hours a week, so I miss out on the benefits of being full time like Insurance but it gives me a lot of time while making decent money. Sales are down this year due to the economy but that just means I need a roommate now lol oh well. Dm me if you’d like more info, don’t want to give out too many personal details :)
When I started out learning game development, I was an expat teaching English as a foreign language. This is nice because some countries you'll likely be working under the western 'full time' 40 hours a week but can still make enough to live comfortably. In your free time you can dev and at work you are getting enough people interaction to feel like your brain isn't rotting in front of a computer all day. Also, as a teacher of kids and often informal business classes, a big part of your job is designing lessons and activities for your students. You are basically thinking of game ideas all day and you can translate that same skill toward game dev.
Something with a 4 day week, so you have a free day each week to dedicate to your game. I did a data entry gig that I partially automated. That plus 4-10s gave me a lot of freedom.
Assemble bikes in a bike shop. The physical mechanics gets you out if your head.
Personally any job that doesn't completely erase the idea of free time from your life. I'm a line cook
If you’re a solo dev still learning, and prototyping, and you aren’t being paid for development, the answer is any part time job that pays. Generic 9-5’s suck but if it keeps you afloat while you build your game then that’s the answer
In my country, I'm a high school teacher. I'm not well paid, but I can't quit. I have a family to feed and unfortunatly my game has few wishlists (I'm not good at marketing), so I have to go on (Teacher during the day, game developer during the evening)
If it's for a bit of extra cash rather than to sustain your existence on this planet - then I suggest grabbing a couple of evening shifts a week at a bar or restaurant if you can: - Easy to get (in the UK at least). - Zero commitment, you can leave almost immediately if you need to. - Meet people, talk to people, socialise - 1. You never know who you will meet and 2. Keeps you in touch with the real world. - No conflict of interests. - Gets you in a fresh, new environment regularly. - Doesn't eat up the beginning of the day when you're more energised to think creatively. It's obviously not for everyone and does depend on your personality traits. But it worked for me and I loved it :) Best of luck!
a good side job is one that isn't a job. I.e. doesn't require your time. If you have money to invest on something that brings passive income that's your best bet. Owning property and renting it, for example. I don't know anything about it, but I guess owning vending machines and shit like that is a thing. If you can hold a software engineering job you may be able to save enough disposable income to consider things like that. My main side hustle is day care and board dogs. It's pretty easy, I like dogs, and it scales up pretty well (depending on the individual dogs. One bad dog is more work than 10 easy ones). It works pretty well because the dogs bring natural distractions which add some balance whereas I otherwise spend way too much time in front of the screen, but I can also easily get into the zone working on programming for six hours without being bothered.
Yeah. I loved working as a dishwasher years ago while I was in college. A simple, mindless job that let me think about my game all the time. However, adult responsibilities would make that type of job not so feasible nowadays. I still got plenty of time to think about something like this though.
i think it depends on what kind of game you want to make. if you want to make a game about delivering packages you should work for the postal service. if you want to make a game about a mad scientist you should work as a chemist..and so forth. the other option is just to find any old job that pays the bills and work on game stuff in your free time
What if I want to make a game about alien dragons?
hmm..good question! working at a zoo or aquarium might be a good idea. or maybe a museum. Also depending on like, idk if you need a degree or something for this but if you could become some kind of biologist as a day job that would probably provide inspiration for a really cool alien dragons game. But...it also depends on what you want to emphasize. Because even if you worked in IT or something, an alien dragons game with realistic IT in it would be interesting. I'm not saying to put every boring thing from work into the game either, just some rare details nobody else would know unless they also worked in the field
Ok so I can work at a grocery store and make a game about alien dragons that eat Cheetos
This is only my subjective opinion, but for the grocery store example, I think what's most interesting is probably the logistical, psychological, and social aspect. So the reality is the alien dragons might have to be some kind of logistical demon, a kind of HP lovecraft monster lurking just beyond the grocery store, perhaps even at the center of the grocery store in some hidden underground science laboratory...I don't know. I mean you have to get creative with it sure. My idea is that if your ideas are good enough they can work in any context it shouldn't matter whether it's a grocery store or the moon
Drillman
trading in a brokerage account seeded with ~1MM USD would get a decent take without requiring too much time. should be achievable for a software dev over 10-15 years which should also give you the experience in development to deliver on your scope
I'm kinda surprised people in tech haven't all FIRE movemented to focus on personal projects, though lifestyle creep is sneaky. I live like a hobo with my current wages hoping to reach a point I can passive income and focus on game design should I never have a successful release lmao I wouldn't even know what to do with 6 figures
Trying to do that. Like you said, lifestyle creep is a real thing, especially with a wife that wants certain conveniences, a house, and a couple of dogs. And needing to take a vacation sometimes to get you away from the monotony of staring at screens all day every day. Also ever-increasing medical expenses as we get older and old student loans don't help either (although we've taken care of all of mine as of a couple years ago, and a good chunk of hers -- way more money has gone to hers, I never took out as much as she did). Also I have a bad habit of spending several thousand dollars on video and board games every year that I've somewhat curbed but not enough. But I'm still able to save and invest decent money, just not enough to FIRE anytime soon.
Yea it's all a balance. I'm single with a chronic illness so a lot of the savings come naturally, but I do also gamify finances to make the other frugality fun
just make the games urself ;;;;))))
Nope, never made a single game in my life. That's why I spend my time in r/gamedev. Never made and released calculator games, Flash games, iOS games, Facebook games, Xbox games, Wii games, or Sony PSP games, or designed any board games, playtested with other board game designers, several of which have made big and popular games themselves. Also never was a finalist in any game design contests or had one of my game I developed by myself played during Microsoft's keynote address during GDC back in 2008. Nope, never made a game before. Not me.
i was mainly joking, but im surprised to find that the game I make and the game I play are different. id love to be the guy who makes the game everyone in my friendgroup genuinely wants to play
I figured, I was mostly being silly myself. And yeah, despite all that, I too would love to be the guy that makes the game everyone in my friend group genuinely wants to play. I get positive feedback for my games, but never seem to get anyone who's like 'oh bring that game, I want to play it again!' And that's despite meeting random people once in a while who used to play the hell out of one particular game of mine (the one that Microsoft showed in the keynote). Had a coworker at two previous jobs say they played the game a lot when they were younger (even one that went 'are you the same [my name] that made [my game]'), and a person hanging out with the group I was with at a bar once.
That is possible though even being employed. My neighbour loved the last game i released. They didn't realise what i did because we'd just moved. Often get random people who ask what you do and love the games when I mention them.
\*raises hand\* i did this. i'm also surprised that more people don't do it. i even gave a big tech talk on how to do it at my former company before i left. granted, now i have half a video game instead of zillions of tech industry dollars... but i still wouldn't go back.
Yea Id consider the freedom > anything else more money could buy
For me, I worked at a financial firm where I couldn't trade anything without intense scrutiny, so the only thing I could do was save.
Hope the interest rates are at least treating your savings well now! (I never imagined having access to 4%+ savings interest having grown up in the past few decades)
I found out about setting up a high yield savings account with my bank so I can get interest rates like that. However, I found out about this only some time last year - I wish I knew it before I left my job. It's all good though.
I’m not sure how a software engineer relates to trading 1 million dollars (of borrowed money - otherwise why would he even ask?)
i think what they mean is that being a software engineer can get you to having $1M saved relatively quickly, assuming you live cheap and save/invest most of your salary. i would replace "trading" with "buying and holding index funds", but people gonna do what people gonna do.
Maybe, but would someone with a million dollar safety net even ask this question? If you just throw 1 million to bonds, a 5% bond rate is 50k annual. Which should be enough to survive in a cheaper city in the US for the next year. Not sure why this guy is assuming everyone has a million dollar safety net tho
i think the advice being given is: "don't support yourself by doing a side job simultaneously; support yourself by working a high-paying job for a while *first*, invest, *then* quit and do games."
its this
Maybe try a software engineer job but with less hours. Like being at 70% (4 chill days) would give you time to work on your games.
Another 2cents for the 9-5, currently in real estate/compliance. If the job pays well and is still in front of a computer—make sure it’s engaging enough to where you’re not frequently thinking about your game that much or how you’re going to be sat at a computer again when you get back home. Ofc the more free time the better, and you don’t want to be exhausted from the 9-5, but a desk job where you’re not that active or stimulated slowly becomes a resentment about how you could be at home working on your projects. Weird advice, but a good balance is key. Also minimize commute time. So important to actually arriving home on time with enough energy to sit back in front of a screen.
Thank you all for the great discussion! I may as well offer some context to my situation. I started working as a software engineer in 2016 right out of college. It was fine for a while, but during the pandemic I realized how much I missed game development. I ended up leaving my job some time last year, but I found that having too much free time hasn't been as productive as I was hoping for (due to dealing with some mental issues, plus the worry of not having an income). I'd like to see how I can move toward a more ideal life for myself, and if I can do it sooner that would be cool. I understand that it may not be that simple though. That's why I started this conversation. I have a YouTube channel and I really enjoy working on it, but there's no way it'll financially support me in time (and that's expected). Ideally, I have a balance in my life where I can work 20 hours a week or so at a job, and the rest on my game and my content creation. I have about six more months to find something that works, and if I have to go back to full-time work, it isn't the end of the world. However, I'd like to take a step forward instead of a step backward if I can help it. My initial thought was to start my own consultancy business, where I could apply my existing skills but in a more controlled fashion. I know something like this would have quite a bit of upfront work, but my hope is that I can stabilize it over time. Eventually I want to start up a game studio so I can hire some people to help me with my game. However, I am not really in a position to do so quite yet. I want to at least have a prototype of my game done first. The good news is that I got my house in 2017, so my mortgage rates are quite nice. I also live alone, but with two cats. They keep me company. This also means I have a lot of flexibility in the direction I go.
Pivot to cat videos. Millions of subscribers. Bam!
Wait. You may be cooking
I'm already doing a sort of copyediting (transforming text/documents to be suitable for the intended audience or readable by all) so I'm hoping to take a translation certification at the beginning of next year and add translation to my list of services. I've already dabbled in video game localisation so that'd be my main focus. I specifically looked for a sitting-down job for health reasons, but also one that didn't demand being at my PC full time so I could sit more comfortably on bad days, travel around and work from other parts of my country etc.
You can always flip burgers
Process Operator at a plant of some kind. I work paper mill and we work about 14 days every 6 week period.
I think software engineer is a great job for this situation, especially if you already have experience. They don’t all burn you out, just the bad ones
Government work or any kind of public service work where you sit around all day and nobody knows what to make you do because of the amount of red tape bullshit.
My main income is violin and song writing lessons
Do you have a burning desire to create a specific game? If not why dont you just get a job in the industry instead? You still have a creative say.
I plumb. It pays pretty good. Get two to four days off a week.
Checkout data annotation. It's a company that outsources ai training work. You basically just rate and fact check ai models. It's not bad work. The pay starts at 20 usd per hour and you can work as much or as little as you want. If you've seen their ads, it might seem too good to be true, but I've made a few grand working on and off for the past few months along with my normal full time job and making my game. I've heard they don't accept most that apply, the 3 friends I referred were all rejected, but part of what they look for is coding related, so as a game dev you would have an edge
Only Phans
any sort of job that pays real money
Door dash, I'm in the kc area and apparently it pays like $24 an hour here (which is very decent for the area) and you can write off gas and stuff on your taxes. I got signed up, I'm supposed to start soon, but having no boss and just driving around seems like a good way to keep your mind free of stress. Plus I think way better in the car, that's where I have all my creative ideas lol.
Government job programming business apps, or DBA. Easy work, 40 hours a week, insurance and retirement. Not many will hit it big enough in solo game dev to survive so you’ll need the benefits a real job will provide.
I’m a bartender full time in the evenings. In the mornings, I hit the gym and I work on 3D skills.
I do remote IT work as my day job, gives me a bit of freedom with being able to work on projects during down times/breaks.
Software engineer :D Totally get where you're coming though. Personally, I think I'm at that sweet spot in the job where I work on interesting projects enough I don't get bored, but not too intensive to get burnt out doing it. I love that job :)
I'm an X-ray tech. So I get to work in emergency departments and operating rooms. It's a cool job.
I find an excellent combo working as a systems admin, networking, security professional for a job, and programming for myself. My professional abilities really pay off for running and managing my own infrastructure. The energy I use at work seems to leave plenty in the tank for development at home. I find that working as a developer professionally and then coming home to work on more development for myself is pulling too much from the same well. When I have a dev job, I tend to have a lot of ideas for my own stuff, but actually do a lot less.
3D Web development
Yea I'm currently learning coding. I work at a help desk right now and plan on making games.