m/careers-centrewww.siliconrepublic.com/careers-centre NTRECAREERS CENTRE GAMING


TECH JOBS 5 ®


Above: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Left: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock


scene of destruction to how people are trying to make their characters appear more realistic,” he explains. “Typically what they’ll do is they’ll have some


very specific way of using our engine software, so it’s a bit like we make engines for cars, but every single client wants to make a custom version.” He points out that many of Havok’s employ-


ees are graduates from computer science, engi- neering and mathematics. “Lots of the people in Havok have a strong


mathematical background and I think that’s be- cause maths taught today in secondary schools is one of the few subjects that really focuses on solving problems as opposed to learning facts. “The Leaving Cert maths course sometimes


can be seen as a series of puzzles where you really need to learn how to solve problems to do well. And that carries through to what we do, because we’re ultimately trying to solve dif- ferent puzzles.” As a result, Havok looks for people who relish


in problem-solving and possess a strong curios- ity and drive to discover how things work. “When we’re doing interviews we can nor-


mally tell from someone in the first 10 minutes whether or not they really have a passion for that sort of thing,” continues Gargan. “We’ll see if people are working on their own pet projects or if they find something they’re interested in and look at how it works – either a piece of soft- ware or something as simple as taking apart electronics at home. “If you’ve an aptitude for these things, then


that’s the right path to be on if you want to end up in the games industry because it changes so quickly,” he adds.


Mobile, indie and social games One such change is the increase of mobile, indie and social games. These types of games have not only impacted the market, but have also given those targeting the games industry a new way to show off their skills. While many console games require a huge team and big budgets to create them, mobile, indie and social games may only need a team of two or three people with skills in design and coding. Both PopCap Games and Havok say that releasing a game in these channels can be an excellent way of attracting attention from games companies. It’s easy to see why – it shows good initiative and displays the creative and techni- cal skills needed to break into the industry. Havok’s Gargan advises people wishing to


enter the gaming industry not to specialise too early. He says that they should enter a general engineering or computer science course first and then complete a master’s in games development afterwards. Above all, Gargan says people should take


advantage of the vast resources available to leverage their skills. “When I was going through


college, the internet was just starting up and we didn’t have the wealth of information that’s out there now,” he says. “There are very few barriers for someone


who’s genuinely curious to find out how abso- lutely everything works.”


Demonware Demonware is another Irish gaming success story that’s looking to grow further. Founded by Dylan Collins and Sean Blanchfield in 2003, the company was acquired by Activision in 2007. It specialises in online software and services for many top titles such as Guitar Hero and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. “Demonware is a little different from most


gaming companies in that we’re not developing games per se, but features and technology to be integrated into the games and often then run as services – so the profile of people we’re looking to hire is somewhat different,” says Tony Kelly, CEO of Demonware. He says the company looks for “world-class engineering talent” when hiring, with a propensity for open source. Demonware also seeks out candidates with expertise in business intelligence, security, data centre provisioning and networking and virtu- alisation, along with spe- cific knowledge of Python, Erlang and Hadoop. “Every day we deal with


the same problems the Googles, Microsofts, Ama- zons, Twitters and Facebooks of the world have to deal with, including working on state-of-the- art infrastructure and hardware in high-density, large-scale data centres and networks,” says Kelly. Referring to the work culture at


Demonware, he says the company has been described as “what Google were like to work for when they were fun”. “The explosive growth we’re experiencing


– such as doubling of headcount for the third time in four years, growth in services from three people in 2007 to 30 plus and growing today – can be difficult to manage and do grace- fully, but we work very hard to protect our inde- pendent status within Activision-Blizzard, the quality of life of our staff, as well as nurturing our unique culture. We work extremely hard at what we do, but we like to have fun while we do it,” explains Kelly. “The folks at Demonware are ridiculously tal-


ented, top-of-their-game engineers who could work for any high-tech company anywhere in the world. The fact they choose to work for us tells its own story,” he adds.


Clockwise, from top: Halo Reach; Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2; and Bejeweled Blitz Live


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