Hey guys, I need some career advice and perspective...

Vaztor

Hey everyone,
I recently got an offer from a Company A (in Military Simulation) to do 3D Modeling. It's a solid offer for me, I liked the people I interviewed with and it's a full time position. Company B (in Game Dev) recently contacted me for an interview for doing Technical Art. It's only a temporary contract, more coding oriented, and much better pay, (if I do well in the interview and get an offer that is). I studied Computer Science and currently work a programming job but I'm definitely way more passionate about art than programming.

Both are great companies to have on a resume and both are better offers than my current job but the type of work and experience would be different. Ultimately I think I would like to do character art and even sculpting for toys and collectibles, so neither of those really contributes to that goal (lol) but I'm trying to figure out how I should leverage my ability to program into this equation cause having that (and being able to do both programming and art) is valuable as well.

What would you guys do in this position, if Company B made an offer? I was just curious what all of your perspectives are. I'd also be curious to know how "technical" is technical art? I don't necessarily see myself as someone who wants to be a software developer but I do enjoy writing scripts and stuff like that.

Thanks in advance!

Michael_Ingrassia

That's a tough decision but maybe looking at long term stability might help. Govt contract work is very stable. The game and film industry is not. Over the last 17 years of my involvement in games I have seen many game studios shut down suddenly with no notice or regard to the employees. Disney and Microsoft (in my opinion) have been notorious for doing this. Plus reviews from coworkers at many game studios is typically not great.

Let me give you some personal perspective:
I worked in London teaching at Escape Studios for 3 years, but my home was in Seattle. I decided it was time to head back to the states and applied for several jobs.

Job  Offer #1 was being hired as a full time instructor at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Salary was okay but SF is very expensive to live in and it would have been a challenge to pay bills and live in the city. But I would have been in close proximity to ILM and Pixar, plus get in tight within the local 3D scene there.

Job Offer #2 was hired as senior environment artist at Microsoft's Fasa Studios. Salary was double AAU. Six figures in fact. Microsoft would look great on my resume too. And I would be close to my kids who lived with their mom in Seattle, so that was a huge plus. And paying bills and living in a nice, affordable neighborhood, no problem.

I took the Microsoft gig and every day was a miserable experience. people were unhappy and quitting left and right. Hours were always 60-65 each week and working Saturdays became mandatory. Upper management sucked and when my contract finally ended a year later they shut down the studio. Last I heard AAU is still around and doing well

You can always move on to working in games. I would strongly suggest taking the govt gig, building a nest egg and sharpening your character and toy sculpting skills on personal time and in a few years maybe explore opportunities then. And with this crazy election who the hell knows what is going to happen to the economy.

Vaztor

@Michael_Ingrassia
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It really helped solidify what I was thinking. That's definitely what I'm leaning towards for a multitude of reasons. I always hear the horror stories about the game industry and job stability and that's honesty what drove me into studying Computer Science in the first place. In that regard it's actually kind of ironic that the more stable opportunity is more in line with my art interest.

But that is true you never do know what could happen and when studios could shut down. I think as far as that goes, this studio is probably pretty stable, but I have heard stories about people getting laid off unexpectedly and bad stories about crazy hours spent working there which makes the govt job much more appealing.

I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open in the future but I think I'm gonna go this route Thanks for your help!

RyanB

Take company B since you have already given half a dozen reasons why you are going to take that job.

Technical artist job requirements vary from company to company.  I write lots of scripts but I've worked with other tech artists who never wrote scripts.

A good technical artist is someone who has three skills: art, engineering and communication.  Most tech artists start with two of those three skills and have to work on developing the third.  A tech artist acts like a bridge and an amplifier by bringing the art and engineering sides together so communication is critical.

Alemja

No matter which one you pick you're going to have to do characters on the side if that is what you really want to do. Game companies are also notorious for their overtime which could lead to a lack of time to work on your own stuff.

I would consider this as well: the game dev gig is a contract as a technical artist, after you're done you are going to need to find a new job. Chances are this will lead you to another tech art gig because its what you already have experience in and they are in high demand, it can be very easy to get pigeon-holed in this way that can make it more difficult for you to move to the art side. In my opinion this makes the stability of the government gig more appealing, because while it pays less, it can give you more free time to work on things you would like to do, which is also very valuable.

Vaztor

@RyanB Thanks for the info! I guess it's something I'd have to find out firsthand to get a feel for the specific type of work I'd be doing.

@Alemja @dustinbrown
Thanks for the tips guys. I really appreciate all of you giving such great feedback cause it's helping me a ton I definitely would prefer the free time rather than being sucked into crazy overtime. It's good for my artistic development but it will also help tremendously when I eventually want to get some freelance projects under my belt as well. Also, the comment about getting pigeon-holed is a great point and something I kind of feared with going further down a programming path. I thought technical art might be a bit more flexible but like you said, because it's in high demand it might be hard to break away from it.