Lead Programer

     What exactly is a lead programmer, what is it they do, and what sort of responsibilities would that job title have? After doing some research into this topic this is what this blog post is planned to do. A lead programmer is something that is needed in any game that is getting made with their responsibilities usually being to supervise the game's overall programming team when building the game and implementing new features as well as helping with any programming problems that may come up during the development. Now being the lead programmer that would also mean that the responsibility of getting things out on time and making sure that everything works as intended will all fall to the lead programmer. While this covers the programming side of things the lead side of things may be something that would put people off of this position as after looking at many different sources it seems that there is also a large amount of management involved in the role with many companies looking to the lead programmer to set the deadlines and make sure each of your team members is not only following them but also able to keep up with the workload. While this might seem like a lot there is still even more things that fall into the lead programmer's responsibilities and that is the fact that being essentially the main one in charge of actually making the game it means that the lead producer would also have to work with all the other teams like production, engineers, design, and art to create and stick to a schedule that works with everyone.

    By taking all these into account you can see how a lead programmers day to day would be helping with the programming side of things every now and then when they pop up, assisting with writing the code, as well as polishing and improving the code of their team members while also making sure their programming team is happy and energized, able to keep up with the deadlines, and are making sure that the project is keeping to the original vision for the game. 

    Now due to the large amount of responsibility that lead programmers tend to have there is obviously a much stricter requirement on what kind of skills a person would need if they wanted to be a lead programmer. The most common requirement for a lead programmer is obviously extensive coding knowledge with many companies asking for a Bachelor's in computer science, math, or an equivalent subjecting and also having extensive experience with at least C++. Many developers also ask for prior development experience in the game industry with most usually asking for at least +3 years of experience but some will require that you have already developed at least one game. While those mostly cover the programing portion of the skills required there are just as many requirements for the lead portion which tend to be proficiency when it comes to working with teams, presenting and organization skills, time management, and overall management skills with some companies asking for a year plus in product management experience. While these are the main required qualifications there are also usually a list of preferred qualifications that a company would have which tend to increase the amount of experience that was asked for in the required skills but also adds on experience with each company’s specific game engines that they use. 

    With all of these different qualifications and expectations laid out, it makes it a lot easier for someone like me to make a guide on just how someone starting out would be able to eventually make it to the role of lead programmer. The first thing that you would want to start out would be learning C++. C++ was the one thing that in all of my research each company wanted their lead programmer to be proficient in and being proficient in C++ would be a very easy way for people wanting to get into a company to start working under another lead programmer which will be a great opportunity to learn from a lead programmer. Another thing that each person hoping to become a lead programmer should be doing while learning to code would be to take some product management classes to give you that extra level over the competition due to the fact that pretty much all of the companies that I looked at were looking for someone who already has the skills that someone like a product manager would have so having some experience in that field would make your application stand out that much more from the rest. Lastly, I would have to say that the other big thing that someone starting out would need to do when trying to be a lead programmer would be to make games, almost all of the companies wanted someone who had experience in the game industry as well as experience making games so having a lengthy portfolio of your work over the years and how much you have improved over the years would make it much easier for a company to look at your work and see that you are the person for the job.

Sources Used:

Lead Gameplay Programmer (572) | Ubisoft Careers

Gameplay Programmer: What Is It? and How to Become One? | Ziprecruiter

Lead Gameplay Programmer in Rockville, Maryland | Careers at Bethesda Game Studios (icims.com)