Hello,

I am graduating soon, and I would like to start my game development career. In addition, I would like to relocate. Ideally, to Canada or France (still expecting to use English at work, I would like to be able to speak French on the everyday basis). However, some other countries from Western Europe such as Italy and Germany would also work great, in my opinion.

My background, besides B.S. in software engineering, includes 7 year experience of participation in various programming competitions (with best results being around 20th place in North-Eastern regional contest of ACM ICPC), therefore I have strong knowledge in algorithms and passion to apply them not only to tasks from such competitions but to real world problems as well.

On the bad side, I have almost no experience in game development except for some small (and mostly not finished, though it's fixable) projects written in C++ (with using OpenGL), Python (in Kivy framework) and Java (for Android, without using any specific libraries at all).

Can you suggest any good companies where they will at least consider my application and I will be able to proceed to the online interview with such skill set?

Thanks in advance.

I would like to relocate. Ideally, to Canada or France (still expecting to use
English at work, I would like to be able to speak French on the everyday basis).
However, some other countries from Western Europe such as Italy and Germany would
also work great, in my opinion.

Getting an entry-level job in a new country is going to be tough. What country do
you live in now?
(By the way, I changed your subject line from "Looking for" to "Advice about" due
to this site's posting guidelines.)

Thank you for reply and for fixing the subject name.

I live in Russia (so my remark about French didn't have anything to do with native language, it was more about my dream to speak the language, that I adore, on the everyday basis. But certainly that dream can wait for some years. The thing which is really important in this case is to move either to some of EU countries or to Canada, even if it would be an English-speaking part (to be able to relocate to French-speaking society later easily).

I understand that it is going to be tough. The question is, what company and/or what role matches my skill set better than the others (again, I emphasize on algorithmic background) so that the chances of me being accepted would be higher?

I don't think any companies here in the UK would employ a graduate programmer from Russia because it would be hard to get them a visa to work here. You might be best getting a job locally for a year or two so that you have more work experience, which can then open up overseas opportunities later. Alternatively, if you can develop a high level of skill in one specific area then that can also make it easier for other countries to hire you.

Mmm, as Kylo mentioned, for a Graduate job you are essentially the absolute intro level really, which there tend to be more of within a country for companies to hire anyway, but also its harder to get a visa to work approved. If you have several years of experience it becomes a fair bit easier as you are a more senior position.

And there are a fair few pretty good (in terms of the games they make, no idea about working environment) games studios that are in russia that could be great for the experience they would be able to provide.