Join Our Merry Band Of Ne’er-Do-Wells!

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Scott Jennings| 33 Comments

Wanting to know what exactly my team’s been working on for the past year or so? Well, one sure way to find out is to join up so that you can sign all the required Ninja Domination Authorizations (NDA for short). Anyway, these are all going up on the PlayNC site shortly, but I’m jumping the line a bit, because a lot of you have expressed random degrees of interest already. Anyway, we’re currently looking for the following:

  • Game Systems Engineer (3+ years C++ programming experience). You’ll be working with me directly, so you need a high tolerance for designers that smoke a lot of crack. Industry experience strongly preferred, but if you’re good enough, that’s negotiable. A passion bordering on mania for improving the current MMO state of the art is not negotiable.
  • Server Engineer (5+ years C++ and Linux experience). You’ll be working with the guy I share an office with directly, so you’ll probably run into a lot of crack smoking designers. SQL and Lua knowledge a plus. If you spend all your free time playing MMOs, that’s also a plus.
  • Tools Engineer (3+ years programming experience). SQL and Lua knowledge a plus, because it’s guaranteed you’ll be using both on the job. You’re going to be the guy the crack smoking designers yell at all the time. Doesn’t that sound exciting? I thought so. It’s how I started in the game industry, so don’t knock it.
  • Senior Animator (3+ years experience, extensive experience rigging models). I can’t crack any jokes about the art positions. Experience with motion capture technology a plus. If you have a demo reel or animation simulations, those are pluses. You will be helping lead an art team on a really cool project.
  • Senior Modeler (3+ years experience, 2 shipped products (games/movies/TV) to credit). I still can’t crack any jokes about the art positions. Links to online samples of your work are huge pluses. You will be helping lead an art team on a really cool project.
  • Senior World Builder (2+ years experience) You will be the first of many, so experience is really required. You will be working directly with the design lead that doesn’t smoke crack, although the design lead that does smoke crack (me) will probably kibitz about your work a lot. You will be on the ground floor of building a really cool MMO.

Job atmosphere is chaos, but fun chaos. We’ve done really well so far at fostering a small, agile guerilla team within a larger company, so if you like small, agile teams where people crack jokes and stuff gets done, drop me a line. Did I mention this was a really cool project?

These positions are in Austin, Texas. If you’re outside the US, you’ll need to be able to provide H1Bs. And no, I can’t talk about the project. Unless, you know, you come in for an interview and sign a lot of forms. If you do that, well, imagine me not being able to talk about what I’ve been working on for a whole year. It kind of scares people when I buffer dump, actually.

So if this all sounds like your brand of craziness, drop me a line at sjennings at brokentoys.org and we’ll get the ball rolling.

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  • Mist

    I’m not seeing ‘Junior armchair dev’ up there, so…

  • Staryx

    Nor do I see “Professional Casual-to-Hardcore MMO player”… I’ve got almost 10 years experience. Bah!

    And where’s the “Sycophantic Assistant to Crack Smoking Designer” position? You need someone to light that pipe for ya. :)

  • http://blog.driftlogic.net Scott

    Blah.

    Move production to Canada. We have health care.. and it’s free! We can work outta my house.

    I’ve got wireless and poutine.

  • Malderi

    The fact that you call it “buffer dump” makes me want to work for you.

    Alas, I have a good job in another part of the country already. And what’s with every damn programming position out there requiring prior programming experience?

  • William Newman

    Malderi writes “what’s with every damn programming position out there requiring prior programming experience?”

    It’s not necessarily the best answer to your question, but I’ve always liked the “OK, I’m here for my job” image enough that any excuse will justify a reference to http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.misc/msg/93671cad8bd17d38?hl=en&

  • Freakazoid

    I hear that the prior experience is, most of the time, just a suggestion. They’ll take anyone without experience if they didn’t recieve applications from those that do, or weren’t happy with something else about the guy with experience.

    I think I’ll stick to living outside of texas and wait for an alpha/beta invite.

  • Brandon Reinhart

    In the game industry its more like a desperate wish.

  • http://www.warhammeralliance.com Garthilk

    Where’s community manager?

  • Scott Jennings

    Considering we’re not talking about the project publically at all, and won’t be for quite a long while, that’s a tad premature.

    Plus, don’t assume that, you know, we don’t already have some folks. For example NCsoft does have community managers on staff already.

  • http://www.warhammeralliance.com Garthilk

    Not assuming anything. It’s asking a question.

  • http://www.gamingtrend.com Jason

    Yeah, I keep poking at NCSoft’s website (as well as Bioware Austin’s) for possible CM jobs. Figure that’s the best way for me to make the jump from media, but hell, I could be wrong.

  • http://thesongoftheday.com chabuhi

    How ’bout writers? Voice-over? Still too early?

    I suppose I *could* fill a position as Senior Microwave Programmer … but it would require a pretty steep signing bonus. My skills in that arena are … well, let’s just say that I actually know how to modulate the cooking power mid-process on a Oster OM0781BCW.

    How many of you can say that? Huh? HUH??

  • Steve

    Lua? Bleah!

  • Blackblade

    Are they going to have a bit more detail about these positions?

    Tools engineer sounds good to me, and I have SQL knowledge galore, but I’ve never touched LUA. I know more then a few object-oriented languages to varying degrees, but it seems to me that there’ed be more required to create tools for the game.

  • Nicademus

    Explain to me again why people fight to get jobs in an industry where firms regularly purge 60-90% of their staff at least a couple times a decade?

    Is EA’s buyout/severance package REALLY that good? Maybe there is a free stripper clause or something.

  • http://www.the-void.ca Doug

    I agree with Scott, move your offices to Canada. It’s where all the cool people are! I swear!

  • http://mythicalblog.com/ Jeff Freeman

    Does this represent some sort of recent green-light or other passing-of-go-collecting-$200, or does it represent a green-light that just took a really long time to turn green?

    Either way, ‘grats. Well, unless I already said ‘grats and just don’t recall on account of it being longer ago than last week or so. If that’s the case, then I’ll just be on my way.

    And taking these ‘grats back with me.

    Unless you really want to be congratulated for it being the end of quarter or somesuch.

  • Juan

    If I hadn’t just bought a house I would be so in. :O

  • nerd gone bad

    Sounds awesome. I hope you round-up a stellar team and craft a terrific mmo/game/experience :)

  • http://www.beafraid.com Hellfire

    Milestones and forward progress are always good things, especially for new projects, grats.

    Now list a job I can apply for without going all Pinnocio and we’ll be all set.

  • ajeba

    Well, If you need a system administrator to Q.A. your elves to insure they’re hardcore gay enough, just lemme know. I’ m your man! I’m mean elf! I mean System-Administrating-Q.A.-Hardcore-Elf-Man!

  • http://www.fiercekitten.com/blog/ Georgia

    Malderi writes “what’s with every damn programming position out there requiring prior programming experience?”

    Sometimes the positions are for people who can hit the ground running without a lot of hand-holding for the first two months of employment. Oftentimes there will be positions opened for entry level programmers, but you really have to meet a certain level of general programming knowledge to make it past the first interview session.

    I’ve only ever worked at two places post-university, so my interview skills are “meh.”

  • Jadawin

    While I’m grateful for the paltry job skills I do have (mostly a hodgepodge of desktop/network/server/pharmacy/general healthcare knowledge that fits my current position that feeds my family), I really, really wish I had gotten off my ass 10 years ago and learned to program like I knew I needed to. Moving to Austin would probably be a deal-breaker anyway. But getting to work with Lum on a MMO would be really frickin sweet.

  • Merkwurdigliebe

    As an unemployed chemist who regularly handles (and sometimes spills) substances that threaten life on a global scale, I can find no way to tailor my resume to any of those positions.

  • Joe

    “I’ve never touched LUA. I know more then a few object-oriented languages to varying degrees”

    Lua isn’t object oriented thankfully, and its very easy to learn. You can be productive with it in a weekend of playing around. Its getting pretty common as an embedded scripting language, definately worth spending a little time trying it out.

    “Lua? Bleah!”

    You bleah about lua, but don’t complain about the C ? Lua is a great embedded scripting language, C is a monstrous and terrible application language. Writing your client in C understandable since its so hard to find 3d programmers that know anything else, but why would you use C for a server?

  • Joe

    Ok, all those “C”s are supposed to be “C plus plus”s, but apparently this site eats plus signs. C is a terrible application language too of course, but that’s because its a good systems language.

  • Viz

    Nicademus, my guess would be that the new people are naive and the old people are inured. You know, the usual.

  • Steve

    Not to get into a language war, but if I had to choose a scripting language, I’d choose Java if speed was a concern, or Ruby if not. However, from what I learned working on SWG, I wouldn’t have a scripting language at all. One of the major problems of SWG was allowing (and even worse, requiring) designers to write scipts, because designers are not programmers. Designers should create content via data-driven tools, not code.

  • http://www.lietcam.com Sara Jensen

    “Designers should create content via data-driven tools, not code.”

    So it’s a good sign that the design positions don’t ask for scripting experience! The server and tools spots do. Lua is apparently the next big thing for UI and similar tasks. (I don’t know if that’s what Scott wants or not. I’m just sayin’.)

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com J.

    Count how many “designer” jobs they need at this point. If they’re still hiring senior techies and poly pushers, maybe they aren’t ready for the ones that just use the toolsets to crank out content. Would all of those even need to be senior, if the toolsets were good enough?

  • Soulflame

    What, no QA? Your project is doomed. DOOMED I SAY.

  • Joe

    Steve, java isn’t a scripting language, and since its never been intended to be an embedded scripting language, its not a trivial task to try to use it as such and it would work terribly. Ruby is also a huge pain in the ass to try to embed in a C plus plus app, and again is overkill since it tries to be a full language. There’s a reason everyone uses lua, angelscript, game monkey, squirrel, etc. They are specifically made to be scripting languages embedded in games and other apps. They are very lightweight, and simple and easy to learn and use. Why would you want to have to make a big fat java class and compile it just to do simple things like UI scripting?

  • http://www.beafraid.com Hellfire

    Well executed Lua is ridiculously useful as an embedded language. It’s easy to restrict/extend and the learning curve begets a multitude of “developers” to varying degrees. Reference the 900lb gorilla that is WoW.

    I’ve done some rudimentary haxing of existing mods, adding extra timers/bossmods and some announces for 5-man stuff and it was an absolute breeze. It took longer for me to decide the manner in which I wanted to do what I wanted to do than it did to write the code.