Game Developer Intern Review

I was placed in the LiveOps pod with ~3 other developers and was treated like a fully fledged member of the team from the beginning. I was trusted to work on tickets independently yet still had the full support of the rest of the pod if I needed any help or suggestions. The work I was given ranged from implementing new limited-time events to fixing bugs in the game. I found the work really enjoyable and it was very satisfying being able to come to a solution and see its positive impact in-game. The start of my internship coincided with the beginning of national lockdown meaning I was never able to meet or work with any of my colleagues face-to-face, I still nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed meeting the team over Zoom and was invited to all of the online socials after work hours.

Prior to starting the internship I had limited practical experience with C++ in comparison to the other languages I've used at university. Being able to dive in at the deep end meant I now have first-hand experience working on a large C++ code base. Being able to work with legacy code has shown me how invaluable documentation and communication within the team is. These are also great skills I will be able to apply when working collaboratively in a team.

Within the team I was treated as a fully fledged member even though I was intern with a lot less experience than my colleagues. They trusted me to do my best on the work that was assigned to me - I was also happy to volunteer to take on other tasks as well as trying to solve new problems. Although I had an assigned 'Buddy' I didn't necessarily feel restricted to only ask them for help when I was stuck on a problem. Some problems meant I needed to reach out to other departments in the team but everyone was always incredible helpful.

Before my internship had begun a personal issue meant that I felt my work was going to be affected temporarily, I reached out to my HR contact and managers to update them on my situation and they were incredibly understanding and supportive, re-assuring me and offering to postpone my start date if I needed to. During my internship I had my monthly one-to-ones with managers and HR to catch up on my progress and the work I was doing. I also had lots of support from the whole team as well as an assigned 'Buddy', but I felt that if I needed specific information from anyone they were only a message away on Slack.

It is clear that the company culture is well understood throughout all of the offices. Even while entirely working from home there was always opportunities to learn more about the company without physically being in the office. There were monthly internal conference calls where all employees in all offices around the world could tune in. Everyone was incredibly dedicated to their work, support was always available to me whether that was work related or on a more personal level. Although I never got the chance to go into the office to work there was still a great atmosphere and a good sense of fun online. Team Demos would always have a lighthearted take on that fortnight's progress, everyone across all roles would be celebratory of success and be constructive towards any challenges faced. Also given lockdown, the social team and management made great effort to make sure that there was some kind of event to look forward to and we were well-looked after while working from home, including expensed lunches/equipment and team-led masterclasses.

I greatly enjoyed this internship, I felt that my personality aligned well with the company culture and the team I was placed in. Having both friendly and helpful colleagues meant I could enjoy the work I was doing and I was allowed to push myself, strengthening my skills as a programmer without feeling overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task. At points when I was given challenging work I had a good balance of independence to come up with a solution myself but also a port of call when I things got too tricky. This paired with the online social events meant there was a lot of fun to be had throughout my internship all while developing my skills and completing tasks. Overall this internship was immensely rewarding; events and features that I worked on both individually and as a team have now made it into a game that I played when it was released over 5 years ago. To meet and be a part of the team which helped make it has been an unforgettable experience, although the circumstances were not what I imagined it to be I still learnt a lot about game development and the agile workflow in order to make a successful game.

Yes

This internship was incredible insightful into mobile apps and the gaming industry. To prepare for the video interview and interview day I would recommend getting up to scratch with C++, make sure you feel comfortable enough to solve HackerRanks or equivalent in this language. My interview day consisted of 3 separate interviews which mostly focussed on your technical ability and past projects. These interviews are also an opportunity to see what the people who work at King are like and for them to get to know you as a person more, at the end of the day, the people who interview you are likely to become close colleagues.