You had an interview and didn’t get the job, again. What could you have possibly done wrong? What were they actually looking for? A study by the Georgia Institute of Technology aimed to find the qualifications you need to get that next developer job. Researchers surveyed 32 hiring managers in the gaming industry to rank the most important skills they look for in their entry-level developer candidates. Job qualifications were categorized as ‘Not Useful’, ‘Sometimes Useful’, ‘Important’, ‘Very Important’, and ‘Essential’.

Programming

As a standard in video game development, proficiency with C++ was ranked ‘Important’ to ‘Essential’ by all surveyed hiring managers. Knowledge about data structures, ability to solve algorithmic problems, and familiarity with debugging tools were also ‘Very Important’ skills. There is some good news for junior developers, 12.5% of recruiters replied that professional programming experience was not required or evaluated in their interviews. 28.1% of survey respondents also considered a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science to be ‘Not Useful’ or ‘Sometimes Useful’ in their hiring process.

Optimization

Senior developers frequently mentioned “that students did not understand how the compiler might produce poorly optimized code.” 53.1% of recruiters considered familiarity with optimization to be a ‘Very Important’ qualification. Ability to coordinate multiple processor distribution and memory optimization were increasingly relevant skills to have as well. Big O algorithm analysis was also deemed ‘Important’ by 40.6% of hiring managers.

Design

Writing clean code was ‘Very Important’ to ‘Essential’ for 84.4% of hiring managers. Overengineering and not being able to settle for “good enough” solutions were also major concerns. Object oriented design was an important skill for senior developers; however, students or entry-level candidates were only expected to know basic design concepts and write understandable code.