
How is the work quality at Blizzard as a developer? - johnlevenstein
How is the work environment at Blizzard and what challenges are you facing there?
I wanted to apply 2 years ago but then I gave up cause someone told me it&#x27;s not what everyone expects.<p>Thanks
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aaronbrethorst
> someone told me

The problem, ultimately, is that every place is made up of people. People are
fallible, limited, and not gods. They're just people. They have to eat and
sleep. They like having interpersonal relationships. Sometimes they're jerks.

When I joined Microsoft as an intern in the Mac Business Unit back in 2002, my
biggest surprise was that the people I worked with—the first real software
engineering organization I'd ever been exposed to—were just people. They
weren't perfect, and sometimes they got grumpy when a certain over-
enthusiastic 19 year old wouldn't shut up.

Anyway, back to your question: Blizzard is probably an interesting place to
work. They maintain the biggest(?) MMORPG, they have a huge amount of history,
and I expect having a role at Blizzard on your résumé looks great. But, since
it _is_ the games industry, you should probably expect endless death marches,
crappy pay, and incredible amounts of churn in between projects.

tl;dr: check Glassdoor and see what employees have to say. If you have
unreasonable expectations about a workplace, you _will_ be disappointed.

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jib
I would also add that a largish company isn't one place, it is many smaller
places that only looks the same from outside.

Once you're past that 150 number or so, you will have multiple cultures and
environments. There will be the small hot next thing, the big incumbent, the
team everyone is waiting on, the hasbeens, the guys in the corner no one knows
what they're doing, the guys everyone has to work with even though no one
knows why, etc. Some traits will be the same, but environment varies a lot.

See recent discussions on Amazon for instance. Some people disagree completely
on their experience.

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striking
Relevant (explanation of "150"):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number)

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santaclaus
One thing to keep in mind is that employers in 'creative' (film, games, etc)
industries often treat their tech employees worse than employers whose main
source of income is the tech itself. I haven't worked at Blizzard
specifically, but I've spent time at other game shops and VFX shops, and my
experience is that you are expected to work for longer hours and for lower
paychecks than your friends writing REST apps for web oriented _startups_ (let
alone established players like Google, Facebook, or even Apple).

Are you interested in Blizzard because you only see yourself developing games
and games alone? Are you interested in graphics and '3D math' and find
Blizzard appealing because they need those skills? Will you be happy being a
'tech' employee without the tech paycheque?

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InclinedPlane
This varies a lot from place to place, a big part of the cause of the problem
is supply side. For a lot of people working in GameDev or doing artistic work
is a "dream job" so there tends to be no shortage of fairly talented young
folks who are willing to put up with anything just to get into the business.
And often that labor pool is abused by big companies. But that's not always
the case, it's just more common than elsewhere in tech.

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mercurial
I'd say that another big factor is the financial part. Take your average game
studio, even large-ish ones always have a very uncertain future after their
next game. When your ability to make payroll depends on getting your game out
at the deadline agreed with/imposed by the publisher, this is going to mean
plenty of crunch time. And then you may get laid off once the game is out,
because the studio doesn't need a lot of programmers during the pre-production
phase of their next game.

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lodle
I currently work at blizzard and it is an interesting company to work for.
Lots going on, many small teams and a little growing pain from wow but
improving bit by bit. Email me john, mchandler@[company].com and i can tell
you more and get you in touch with the right people.

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janesvilleseo
If you get him hired, does Blizzard give you a referral bonus?

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xiaoma
My last boss, CTO of a fairly small YC start-up, was ex-blizzard (SCII player
matching infrastructure + D3 launch) and he's hand's down the most amazingly
technically skilled person I've ever worked with. He did have a few brutal
stories from the trenches at Blizzard, but to be 100% honest I'd probably take
a 15% pay cut there vs a typical large SV company just based on what I heard
(and saw).

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johnlevenstein
Judging by their work, I am sure they have some top talent. Most of the
products are well polished. How would a brutal story go?

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mahyarm
Well according to my 6 year old information from WoW, they used C++ for their
servers and have a bit of a NIH streak.

So I am guessing it's probably still a C++ heavy shop like many gamedev
places.

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noselasd
Somewhat related, CppCon 2015: Ben Deane “Testing Battle.net (before deploying
to millions of players)" :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoZWnYIcP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoZWnYIcP4)

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lodle
Ben deane is a very smart guy. He gives a lot of talks internally as well.

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husseiny
I don't work at Blizzard but know someone who recently went there. I have not
spoken to her yet about her experience but I would imagine that by "not what
everyone expects" is probably related to the fact that at the end of the day
it is still a business, gaming or not, they have bills to pay.

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bruu_
I feel like Blizzard would have been really sick to work at when WoW was
actually a growth business

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smt88
Have you looked on Glassdoor?

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danielrpa
Working at Blizzard is awesome - you will love it there.

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johnlevenstein
Are you saying this because you work there or you heard about it?

