Since I started working in the game industry, I have worked multiple jobs and freelance contracts. When I first began, imposter syndrome was real and I felt I had to prove myself before settling in to my new career. These experiences helped shape my confidence as a professional game developer as I have yet to encounter a developer who disagreed with my way on doing things.
Even so, there are many challenges I have yet to encounter and I will need to constantly improve my skills to be ready. My latest pet project has been getting accepted on TopTal, a platform for freelancers to obtain contracts for high paying clients.
Due to their rigorous onboarding tests, only 3% of applicants get accepted onto the platform. Unlike Upwork or Fiverr, TopTal takes only the best developers it can find around the world.
Although, I have been coding for a decade and have worked on tons of games with dozens of clients, TopTal's coding tests do not involve writing game code or anything gaming related for that matter.
To pass their tests you must be an expert at algorithms and data structures that most game developers never encounter while building out their projects.
To sharpen my mind for the task I will be going through the lessons found on Codility and HackerRank. I suggest all coders to try them out. For many of you it may be hard, but it will show you that there is still more to learn and it will open up a path of improving your most valuable skill.
Good luck!
Written By Guri Waraich
Professional Game Programmer