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Comment by mosburger | Hacker News Reader

My son has been looking for an entry level position ever since graduating (last year, in 2024) with a Game Development degree at a pretty decent school. Right now he's teaching kids programming in an after-school program to keep from going crazy. Before that he did an unpaid internship. Things are looking pretty grim for him - I wish I knew how to help him. :(

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The layoffs in the games industry are one of the worst [0] by far. Really terrible timing, it's so unfortunate.

[0] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/topics/layoffs

First mistake was a game development degree. I tell everyone who is interested in that field it isn’t glamorous, they overwork you and under pay you because they know want to be game developers are “passionate”.

Oh I get it. I tried to convince him of the same thing. I figured the skills would be transferable to something less brutal once he inevitably burned out on the games industry. He started looking at less game-oriented programming jobs but he's now questioning his whole career path and considering going into teaching/education instead.

Good teachers with technical backgrounds are hard to find. Things might be falling into place for him.

Maybe he should try to publish a game on his own or with some friends for iOS/Android or on something like Steam? The act of getting something out there can inspire further ideas and may open other doors.

Have him look into computer security. Developers are always sought after. Web app testing is a good start

https://portswigger.net/web-security

> Have him look into computer security. Developers are always sought after.

Many of these jobs are being outsourced overseas.

When has that not been the case?

You'd be surprised how many young people entering this field didn't know that.

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