EA: YEAR ONE

I almost forgot the milestone but today is my one year anniversary as a software engineer at EA. It’s been an interesting and difficult year, not difficult bad, just a lot of work. A lot has transpired in the last twelve months.

If you know me, you know I’m fond of reflecting on past times and this case will be no different. I almost didn’t take the EA offer because I didn’t think I was “good enough” to be at EA. The decision was really difficult at the time since I didn’t want to screw up what I had already.

Well, one year later and I have absolutely no doubts or regrets about my decision. I also know now I am certainly good enough to be an EA SE. Having said that, I realize I am far from the best SE at EA and there’s a lot for me to learn still. It’s this combination of being comfortable in my abilities while realizing I can improve that puts me in a position that I like.

What a mistake it would have been to have not taken the offer. My goal in grad school was to work on a big triple-A title on next-gen consoles. skate certainly fits that description. It’s a privilege being part of the team that’s making skate. I’ve seen so many new things that EA does that I would have missed out on at a smaller company. Just the fact that people are even talking about our game in appreciable numbers on the Internet is a real treat.

Of course, it hasn’t been all party hats and gold coins. I’ve worked a lot of OT and I’ve essentially given my life to this game for about half a year. It’s a lot to ask for out of people and I hope the higher-ups at EA realize this. Actually, I do know some managers realize this, they’ve told me. I know they’ll try to make it up to us. The only question is, what will they offer us?

So, it’s year one done and I don’t know how many more in the future. It was a good decision and I can’t wait to get skate out the door.