Job Change Retrospective
Job change after 7 years at first company - background, achievements, regrets, and efforts
Background
- Stayed at first company for 7 years.
- Watched the company grow from around 10 people to 100.
- Couldn’t find my role in that process.
- Strongly resonated with Expert Beginner.
- They say you need to change 3 things for change.
What I Did
- Developed 5 products using Unity Engine
- Collaborated with 2 publishers (Gamevil, Bigfish Games)
- Experienced self-publishing process
- Wrote Android/iOS code
- Built CI using Jenkins
- Experienced small teams to reasonably sized multiple teams
- Collaborated with foreign teams
What Went Well
- Built extensive practical experience through endless crunch
- Took interest in other positions’ work
- Worked in English collaboration
- Traveled abroad for business (LA, Vegas, Seattle, London)
Regrets
- Didn’t design a career path at all
- Poor focus and choices
- Just did assigned work
- Poor self-development
- Neglected exercise
Efforts Made
- Participated in game jams (Smage Game Jam, GGJ)
- Studied completely different development (Flutter, Redux)
- Attended developer conferences (Unite, PyCon, JSCon, NDC, Flutter Conference)
- Participated in developer events (Hacktoberfest 3 times, NDC AI competition top 16)
- Attended game events (Google Indie)
Job Change
Ultimately moved to the current startup
What I Did
- Scraped all job postings from GameJob and applied systematically
What Went Well
- Experienced the harsh job market during job search
- Learned about Unity game client companies and their requirements
Regrets
- Wasn’t fully prepared
- Should have updated resume and career portfolio frequently even without changing jobs
- Left impulsively rather than waiting for good timing
Efforts Made
- Reflected on my life
- Checked visa processes for overseas employment
New Company
- Passed a foreign company but ultimately joined a friend’s startup
Joining Goals
- Automation automation automation
- Introduce hip design
- Testing testing testing
What I Did
- Overall client-side development
- Data collection and analysis planning and development
- Visualization using Data Studio
- CI pipeline development using Jenkins
What Went Well
- Understood and participated in company-wide issues
Regrets
- Couldn’t introduce various processes (Linter, automated testing, dockerized build)
- Didn’t have good collaboration system