By Chris Starrs
Hi-Rez Studios, creators of online interactive entertainment such as Global Agenda, Tribes: Ascend and SMITE: Battleground of the Gods, expects its 10th anniversary to be the company’s best year.
In 2014, the Alpharetta-based company grew from 75 employees to some 150 by December. Founded in 2005, the company expects to hire another 50 workers in 2015.
The company looks for talent in two different areas, development and marketing/business, said co-founder and chief operating officer Todd Harris. Entry-level jobs pay in the $35,000 range along what Harris called “a six-figure path.” He answered three questions about who Hi-Rez is hiring.
Q: What types of jobs are expected to be available at Hi-Rez Studios?
A: The jobs span just about every type available in terms of video game development and video game marketing and publishing. That includes programmers, 3-D digital artists, animators and concept artists. On the development side and on the marketing side, we’ve got web page designers, video editors and general marketing and business personnel.
Q: Is having a degree the only way through the door?
A: Talent rises to the top. It depends on the category. For artist positions, it’s entirely about the strength of their actual portfolio, so it really doesn’t matter where they went to school or if they went to school or what their experience is. For many people, art schools are a great way to develop a portfolio and the discipline helps, but it doesn’t really factor into hiring process.
For programmers, if it’s a more experienced hire, (schooling) doesn’t really matter but for entry-level technical folks, having an undergraduate degree is important and does help them get to the top of the stack to be seen.
Q: Which schools do most of your hires come from?
Harris: If I ranked them, Georgia Tech and Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) would be the top schools we’ve pulled folks from. We also do internships with a number of schools, but those are the top two in terms of sourcing interns. We’ve also hired from the Atlanta Art Institute, DeVry, Full Sail in Florida and the University of Georgia. We mostly hire from art schools, like SCAD, or traditional four-year universities that have computer-science realms – Georgia Tech, Clemson and Georgia being the top ones that fall in that category.
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