The topic at hand may seem a bit weird but this has been one of my many concerns moving into this field. A little background about myself before I start my question so that people can understand where I am coming from.

    I am currently going through a college to gain my Game Development and Programming degree and I am about 2 terms away from completing this milestone in my life. I am also a full time Active Duty military member and have been for 17+ years. My goal is to serve our country until they tell me I can no longer serve but I also do not want to handicap myself once I do retire and I begin to apply for jobs in this field. At the earliest I can retire at 38 or at the latest 48. 

    This leads me into my job opportunity question, will my age and lack of experience in the filed other than my degree handicap me when i begin to apply against the younger applicants?

My plan is to continue working on smaller projects as a volunteer and to work on a few things during my off military time in order to build an extensive portfolio to go along with my degree and possible masters before I retire in computer science.

   Will my continuing education and projects be enough to join a large AAA team or even a smaller company as well?

Thank you for reading and I look forward to any posts and information!

Franky

On my console/platform engineering team there are people between 22 and 40-something. The average is around 30. Although we don't have many developers over 45 in the whole company, it isn't because we wouldn't like to, it's because they've moved to some other fields or industries altogether. Don't be too afraid, merit and not being a dick is what matters, not details like age, sex and such, especially in games and tech firms. I like to be positive about our industry I hope people and companies don't discriminate more in the US than in Central Europe :) Also, your projects and the enthusiasm shown will be more important than your education.

Something that I would add to the other replies you’ve got so far:

Don’t stop with your education at the degree level. 

Game dev can be a quickly moving industry. Try to keep up with good practices, engines/frameworks and programming/scripting languages that are being used or the industry is moving to. The cool thing about game dev is, that a lot of practices are being shared. Many good presentations are held regularly, so try to take something out of those.

On 11/14/2018 at 4:47 PM, Rutin said:

Generally speaking (not just in IT) - I personally never look at age (aside from legal requirements) when I've had to hire. What I care about is one's competence among some other factors so that individual will be able to mesh in to the current culture and group if applicable.

If you're able to perform well and do the job no company 'should' refuse to hire you over a younger application who isn't as qualified. You might get passed over if it's a reason of culture fit and they must have someone today. We don't live in a perfect world sadly so you have to roll with it sometimes. There is age discrimination in the working world, and such companies are not worth working for anyhow, but you have zero control over it so don't worry about it... Just keep applying when you get to that stage.

My advice is work on being the best you can be in your chosen craft and give it your all. If you show enthusiasm and competence you're already setting yourself on the correct path. Will you get into a AAA company out the gate? Well that depends on the position, networking, luck of the draw, portfolio, if someone likes you enough, ect...  Nobody can guarantee you'll get hired in (x) period of time or at (x) size company, or (x) company, but if you keep pushing to succeed and continue to put your best foot forward you'll be better off than doing the latter.

Build your resume up along side your portfolio (if you're a programmer it should be 'code' based, not with "visuals" everywhere and no code) and focus on jobs that will help you do that. If you aim for the top when starting out you're going to set yourself up for failure. Don't be afraid to settle for smaller companies and entry level positions because you're technically at that level anyhow in terms of employment experience in programming regardless of knowledge.

One big tip I'll give you is do lots of research on properly creating resumes. So many companies are using automated systems to filter resumes and you'll need to have the correct "key words", or risk getting your resume trashed before a human even sees it.

I didn't see what goal you had in your post though? What are you aiming for as you've indicated you want to get a masters... Game Programmers generally don't go for master degrees, that's usually more on the higher up -> executive positions. Game Development has many moving parts, it would be a good idea to define what you're aiming for.

Wow! Thank you guys for all the valuable information. This does make the eventual transition seem a bit easier to swallow once I decide it is time to retire from the Navy. The biggest concern for me was that my age would over shadow my abilities but after reading these posts from you guys, I believe that any large AAA or smaller game companies are just like any other company and are looking for the best talent available no matter what age you are which is very refreshing to hear.

To reply back on a few questions and comments from all posters:

My goal is to become a programmer initially, get in the weeds and learn everything I can from the field for as long as I can. With that being said, I do not want forward progression in any endeavor I take so advancing through the field is a goal as well but not initially. I do understand that a Masters is not required for a programmer but I figured that since the Navy will pay for any level degree I choose to tackle, I assume that it will not hurt to have the highest degree possible.

Ideally, I think that in my post I shot for the moon and stated a Large AAA company but that is a dream scenario that I have about 10% staked into it actually coming into reality. I would be open to any programming position with any company once I retire in order to get my self more well rounded and maybe one day working for the big boys!

About the not being a dick part...welllll lol if you ask my subordinates, they probably say that I am when I tell them things they do not want to hear but on the other hand I am a very well liked person that likes others so I am sure I can control that part. I just want to be part of a team, possibly a game developing team, and make some great games that make people happy! I am really excited to see that there are people in my age group flourishing in the field and that the age is not a big deal as long as your willing to work hard and make things happen!

That is going to be my biggest focus throughout this process is to focus and read on whats new and how to make myself better. I want to finish my degree and move on to higher education but during those in between times, I will be focusing on perfecting my craft in what ever form is made available to me like internships or volunteer projects!

Thank you all and you are all awesome for replying!

P.S: If you are looking for a retired Navy vet in a few years for a programming positions don't forget about this post lol

Ireef,

Coming from a similar background, the advice I can give is to keep up with the small projects. By and large, your age shouldn't be a discriminating factor. What will be the discriminating factor is the lack of industry experience (which the small projects should help prove that you have some experience). That was my issue when I transitioned from the army to the game industry. I applied to a lot of studios but rarely would hear back. I managed to become friends with a hiring manager at a medium-sized studio whom I met at a conference and he gave me that feedback. I eventually managed to get my foot in the door at an indie company. What is not immediately transparent is that big studios are looking for the "quick fix" solution most of the time. If they need a programmer with x-number of years, they get a programmer with x-number of years. Most companies do not have a set career progression scheme or care much about deviating from the criteria of what they are looking for, so what that means for us that transition careers is that we are likely going for entry-level positions which are very tough because plenty of people apply. I can say, once you work there for a bit, you stand a good chance of getting a leadership position because of the military experience. At least, that's what happened to me. I hope this helps