It is that time of the year again, and we need interns. For dungeon making purposes. You will be expected to lay bricks, and tile the ground, and spread moss and slime around, deal with skeletal remains and such…
[here you can see Tobias, the traveling intern (level 17), making dungeons several months ago, and enjoying every bit of it, becoming the eternal model for intern conscription efforts]
Requirements are as usual with some extra:
- Currently pursuing a Computer Science/Programming/Game Development oriented education.
- Preferably university level or higher education.
- Extensive portfolio/code/devblog of mad stuff that you programmed in your free time with good explanations. (We cannot stress enough how important this is.)
- Knowledge of C# is a must, but if you got your thing going on with Java or C++ also nice.
- Good knowledge of Unity 3D engine.
- Preferably living in Utrecht or willingness to travel to. (we cannot provide for lodging but or rent compensation, however we will try to help you find a room)
- Good communication skills and English is a must.
- Dedication and willingness to learn, and a plan of things you want to focus on.
- Ability to read and understand scientific articles, books, papers, notation, and skills of the mathematical nature.
- (extra) a love for dungeons
- (extra) understanding and appreciation of pen&paper/tabletop/rpg/frp.
- (extra) world generation, procedural algorithms, fractals
Q: What is Gray Lake Studios?
A: We are an independent game production company that focuses on technology and aesthetics. We got cool tools like random dungeon generators, wind simulators, reinforcement learning algorithms, etc. that you can use/learn during your internship.
Q: What are you working on?
A: Check our projects here. Currently we’re working on ProDnD, a random dungeon generator for tabletop rpg players on Android.
Q: The working environment?
A: Our office is at Kanaalweg 17 in Utrecht which is pretty close to the central station.
Q: Fun and Food?
A: We make sure people eat well, and have a friendly environment.
Q: What is the interview process like?
A: We will ask you a bunch of programming related questions. Mostly to measure your ability to think on the spot as well as your knowledge of programming. No need to worry much. We do not expect you to know every programming related thing. That’s what google is for.
(ALSO IMPORTANT) Make sure you bring a laptop with all the nice stuff you want to show us and you will be fine. There often is a second interview.
Q: What are the working hours?
A: We want you here at 9:00. You are free to go at 17:00 Usually we have to kick out everyone from the office after 18:30 because it is so much fun working with us. Rarely if ever we deviate from these hours. You have a right to use national vacations. If you get sick we will expect you to make up for the missing hours when you’re feeling better.
Q: Assignments? Workload?
A: If you are a good intern we will even sit down with you and work towards an assignment that you are mostly in charge of. You have to be prepared to do research on your own, read scientific papers, and books. If scientific notation and mathematics look like gibberish then you have a lot of distance to travel before applying to us.
Q: Burnout Policy?
A: Burnout is a touchy subject. Most game development companies work people hard till they bleed their fingers. Some operate intern farms where interns are expected to abide by full production quality invariably failing at the end and getting blamed for messing up.
We do not like that!
We know what an intern is. You come here to learn, and expect effort from us just as we expect effort from you. Interns are allowed to make mistakes and no amount of excessive work can change that.
If anyone shows signs of burnout/programmer’s desperation we will ask you to take a time-out. However we also do not like grumpy people who easily whine and complain when things get tough. We like the dedication that comes with passion in things we do and expect a similar approach from the interns.
Some Programmer’s ground rules at Gray Lake Studios:
- Always use pen & paper before starting to program.
- Java sucks and C++ is the best but we all want to learn Lisp yet nothing beats Fortran.
- PHP is devil spawn.
- We do not like wearing hats on interviews, unless it is your “thing”. We also take this example as a proof that you’ve read this brochure. So mentioning why you are not wearing a hat is a definite plus in the interview.
- Cleanliness and hygiene comes before proper code base structure.
- Listen to Erhan when you are stuck.
- Comment your code even before thinking about coding. Or Tunc will get you in your sleep.
Now, send us your stuff via e-mail contact@graylakestudios.com
