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Zkuq on 29 August 2025
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IcaroRibeiro said:
sc94597 said:

EDIT 2: Just to put things in perspective, Senior Software Engineers in the video game industry make at the median roughly what an entry-level Software Engineer makes for a large health-care company here in the U.S, and they're more likely than the health-care industry Software Engineer to live in a high-cost of living area. Why would talented engineers work for $90,000 per year in coastal California or Washington D.C area, when they can make $130,000 in Conway, Arkansas? Because it is more interesting work? 

My boyfriend works as a senior QA in a game development company, and he told me that the wages for junior and mid-level developers range from 32k to 65k BRL a year (about 6k–12k USD)

That's kind of nuts, because I'm a mid-level Data Scientist making 140k BRL a year (~26k USD). Granted, data jobs are among the highest paid (and usually require the most highly qualified professionals, at least in terms of college or postgraduate education), but it's still perplexing. The brightest minds in software engineering are probably not in game development. My guess is that the best developers, at least in terms of scientific computing and theoretical foundations, are all in software development, aiming for FAANG jobs

I can see many of the brightest minds on gaming development just giving up their jobs after feeling fed up with getting overworked for very average to bad wages

As far as I know, game programmers are highly valued, at least in some fields. I suspect it's especially people close to the engine, where the work is more technical in a way (performance requirements, math etc.), but I don't know for sure. My point is that at least some programmers in the gaming industry probably actually are much better developers than you might think at first.