Programmer Between Jobs...

Announcement time, I'm unemployed... Yes, as of the 28th December 2018 I have not been gainfully employed.  But fear not, I am starting my new job on Wednesday 2nd January.

I've covered this in a nattering brief on my YouTube, which I now link, but stick with this post for more information.

I've never really spoken directly about the job I've had and how its evolved over the years I've been with it, so I was at that role for 14 years.  That's a very long time, especially in today's markets, but as you all know I keep myself busy and informed on these very pages.

I did work in what's euphemistically called "the pay to play industry", this is the gambling industry to the rest of the world, but saying that I didn't write the actual games.  I was a systems engineer, so I wrote software which drove the money accepting and paying hardware, and especially software which worked to store the current state of a machine, avoid frauds, count, collate and communicate metrics to central servers or offline (USB) uploads.

And I did all this according to a set of quite strict legal guidelines and requirements, so we're not talking about the much media covered "crack cocaine of gambling the FOBT", we're talking at most about £1 stake machines, family game machines, questions and answer style stuff.  The more cuddly end of the market if you're asking me.

I am leaving that industry, all that knowledge of BACTA standards and other stuff has been slowly ebbing out of my pores and leaving me, as I actually resigned in early October and in late October (when it became public knowledge in the office I was leaving) they placed me on gardening leave.  We'll gloss over that as some folks got their righteous fury out and pointed it in my direction; needless to say, being on gardening leave this long has let the move happen seamlessly, but it will be a shock to return to early morning rising to get into Nottingham City Center... Plus, no more day time tele... Oh thank god, no more daytime TV!

So, where am I going?  Well, I'm going to a company called The Multiplayer Guys, this is an actual game company, a computer game, console game crew with close ties to an actual game house Super Punk Games.

Now I can't share anything about what I'm going to be working on, but I'm carrying my C++, Windows and Linux experience high on my shoulders.  I'm eager to learn more about the Client Side structure of modern game engines and leverage my server-side and networking experience with the high-speed low latency efficient demands of a modern game.

So, yes, I know what game I'm going to be working on, that's the bit I can't share with you, maybe over time, but right now, nada, nothing, no comment... Move along, move along.

P.S.  I got an e-mail at 16:42 that my Laptop shipped, from China (despite being told the Lenovo reseller was in the Republic of Ireland) by UPS Global... I'm wondering if it'll be here within the week now, I really am.