Jeb CollinsCuriosity question for any hiring managers in games industry or tech. What would you think if you saw a math professor’s resume come across your desk, for programmer job? Research in computational math, so considerable programming experience but never actually developed a piece of software or worked outside of academia. Would you be willing to take a risk on them, thinking you can use their math and problem solving and teach them the rest?
Vague question I know. But I always tell my students that employers like math majors because they know how to think and can be taught the specifics of the job. I’m wondering how true that actually is (and if I can use it to switch professions 😊)
posniewski@jbcolli2 I'd need to have some concrete proof that the candidate can actually write code. For example, by taking a programming test of some kind. I don't think talent with mathematics in general guarantees talent with coding or algorithms.
Good programming is not a simple adjunct to other skills, in my opinion. It is a talent or skill of its own. Strength in math (or any other field) doesn't have much bearing on coding ability, in my experience.
@jbcolli2
A computational mathematician might have those chops, but honestly that's not a kind of math I'm familiar with enough to know that those skills are there.
As far as taking a risk: for an entry level position, sure. Especially if I can see code (test, github) or can see a spark of "gamedev" in the application. But everything else being equal, I might lean more towards an engineer (as I see engineering as reduction of science to practice).
@posniewski Thanks for the response! I completely agree that math and programming are two different skills, it’s why I advise all my students to take CS classes.
Could you tell me more about the test you talking about? I’m assuming more than the proficiency tests on LinkedIn 😊.
@jbcolli2 For our test, we send the candidate a set of requirements for a small system. It takes around 2-3 hours, though it's not timed. The task isn't tricky or anything; it's a common sort of thing you might need to do on the job. For us, the expectation is they'd use C/C++.
The task requires the ability to take the reqs, decide what data structures to use, implement them, and prove it works via code.
@posniewski Nice, actually sounds like it would be fun if there wasn’t the stress of an interview going on.
@jbcolli2 Oh, it's a take-at-home test. We send it to you the day or two before, you work on it as you can, and return us your code and and approximately how long it took you to do it. No time pressure, or people standing over you, or tricks. We just want an example of your professional output for our task.
@posniewski Ah that’s nice. Yeah it sounds like the kind of thing I would have fun working on. But then I also like to work problems in the back of math textbooks 😊. Best way to learn.