KSP Lacks Lead, Senior and Junior Developers

[klesh]

https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/en/?page_id=499

 

Quote

Lead Developer

SQUAD is looking for a Lead Game Developer to join its international team-platform development.

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Senior Developer

SQUAD is looking for Senior Game Developers to join its development team.

Quote

Junior Developer

SQUAD is looking for Junior Game Developers to join its development team.

 

 

How can development progress at a reasonable pace with no Lead Developer, let alone multiple Senior and Junior Developers?  These positions have been available for some time.  What is happening at Squad that these positions aren't being filled?

Is someone who is not qualified to be the Lead Developer trying to manage everything in the absence of that position being filled?  Its concerning that these positions would remain open for so long.  I've never worked in game development, but from the outside looking in, Squad seems to be currently well understaffed.

Edited September 9, 2017 by klesh

[klgraham1013]

This just seems like a company wanting to grow more than anything else.  Their current output should speak more than any job listings that might be posted, and the current team seems very much able to put out a reasonable product. 

[Harry Rhodan]

28 minutes ago, klesh said:

How can development progress at a reasonable pace with no Lead Developer, let alone multiple Senior and Junior Developers?

Well senior developers are old and slow. Junior developers are new, have no clue and are therefore slow. And a designer made of lead is just extremely heavy and will slow everything down.

[klgraham1013]

1 hour ago, Harry Rhodan said:

Well senior developers are old and slow. Junior developers are new, have no clue and are therefore slow. And a designer made of lead is just extremely heavy and will slow everything down.

Your logic is infallible. 

[stibbons]

What on earth makes you think they don't already have any of these? 

[Xyphos]

KSP already has these positions filled. it would seem that Squad is seeking to expand and develop other projects.

[klesh]

2 hours ago, stibbons said:

What on earth makes you think they don't already have any of these? 

 

I didn't say they don't already have any of those, I said it lacks them, because they are looking for them. 

I would presume (again, I said Ive never worked in software development) there would only be one Lead developer.  Would there be more than one Lead?

In terms of senior and junior developers, if they're looking for more, they don't have enough.  The same issue of why aren't they being filled persists.

 

Sorry I dont have such a vast understanding of the software development process as you lot.  My mistake!

 

[linuxgurugamer]

9 minutes ago, klesh said:

 

I didn't say they don't already have any of those, I said it lacks them, because they are looking for them. 

I would presume (again, I said Ive never worked in software development) there would only be one Lead developer.  Would there be more than one Lead?

In terms of senior and junior developers, if they're looking for more, they don't have enough.  The same issue of why aren't they being filled persists.

 

Sorry I dont have such a vast understanding of the software development process as you lot.  My mistake!

 

There can be more than one lead developer.  Just like there can be openings on a existing team, due to someone leaving, growth, etc.

[Alshain]

51 minutes ago, klesh said:

 

I didn't say they don't already have any of those, I said it lacks them, because they are looking for them. 

I would presume (again, I said Ive never worked in software development) there would only be one Lead developer.  Would there be more than one Lead?

In terms of senior and junior developers, if they're looking for more, they don't have enough.  The same issue of why aren't they being filled persists.

 

Sorry I dont have such a vast understanding of the software development process as you lot.  My mistake!

 

Incorrect.  Senior, and Junior are terms that reference your experience level as a developer. Senior usually have 15+ years professional experience, Intermediate have 10, Junior have 5, Entry Level less than 5.  You typically want a mix of these for reasons of cost and training developers that might be your senior devs someday. 

 

There are many reasons to advertise for these, the most common is multiple projects or add teams to a larger project for faster development.  A team usually consists of around 5 developers.  Each team will have a Lead in some methodologies, though the methodology quickly becoming the most popular (called SCRUM) actually has no lead and the teams manage themselves.

 

The simple truth is growing companies are always looking for more developers, since you always want your company growing... this is a good thing.  Start getting concerned when they stop hiring devs cause that means the company growth is stagnant.

Edited September 10, 2017 by Alshain

[Vanamonde]

They have some. They'd like more.

[Gargamel]

And while it is advertised on the KSP site, in the parts you quoted, there is no reference to them working strictly on KSP.   With their recent acquisition and KSP not requiring a full development team anymore, they may have been given the greenlight to start work on other projects they have been back burnering for a while...... It's more like expansion rather than replacement....

[HebaruSan]

32 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

And while it is advertised on the KSP site, in the parts you quoted, there is no reference to them working strictly on KSP.   With their recent acquisition and KSP not requiring a full development team anymore, they may have been given the greenlight to start work on other projects they have been back burnering for a while...... It's more like expansion rather than replacement....

Maybe this team will work on removing Kerbalizer from the store.

[something]

The number of job openings and the time they're advertised tells you something about a company.

Many openings per employee usually points to high fluctuation in the company. People aren't happy with something or do have limited contracts.

Long periods of advertising means,  they don't employ the people they are looking for,  because they don't employ anybody at the moment but do not want to appear that way, or maybe they don't offer enough, or they could simply be looking for someone who doesn't exist.

 

In this case, however,  I think it is more of a 'we have all we need but maybe an amazing employee contacts us, so we should have some openings available'...

[klgraham1013]

5 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Maybe this team will work on removing Kerbalizer from the store.

Look.  Web designers are expensive.  These things take time.

[softweir]

On 9/9/2017 at 5:15 PM, klesh said:

How can development progress at a reasonable pace with no Lead Developer, let alone multiple Senior and Junior Developers?  These positions have been available for some time.  What is happening at Squad that these positions aren't being filled?

You are assuming these people will be working on KSP. However, though Squad makes KSP,  Squad <> KSP. There is nothing preventing them from making other games.

An alternative is that they have an Acting Lead Developer, but that person doesn't have experience outside of Squad in that field and is making it up as they go along learning on the job. This is very common in Startup companies in game development, but it isn't a long-term sustainable situation in a growing company: it is too easy for an inexperienced person to set up faulty development models that then need to be reworked. We've seen some comments in The Daily Kerbal over the years which suggest they have had to rework their development paths repeatedly. It is common practice for one of the more experienced developers to fill the lead developer role in an informal capacity, and then for a more experienced lead developer to come in to streamline the production of more complex games.

One important skill for a Lead Developer worth their pay is to make good guesstimates of how long it will take to do any given job, and decide who is best suited for that job. This enables them to dovetail work more efficiently than a less experienced person can, thus making sure everything ends up being done on time and with nobody hanging around for somebody else to finish their job. The more games a person has worked on, the better the guesstimates!

At some point, the Acting Lead Developer will use the experience he gained in that role plus the experience he gained under a professional Lead Developer to get a job elsewhere as Assistant Lead Developer, and if s/he has the chops will go on to be Lead Developer for somebody, somewhere.

[Snark]

It's also worth noting that pretty much any company where things are going well is going to be looking to hire people, basically all the time.  Because if things are going well, it means your business is increasing, which means you want to get more engineers so you can do even more business.

So when you see a company saying "we're hiring", that's generally a good sign.  When a company stops hiring is when you generally want to watch out-- a hiring freeze is often a prelude to layoffs, and can be an indicator that things are not going so well.

[nestor]

We are always open for evaluating more candidates, that's why the job descriptions are still there.

[p1t1o]

KeyPoint: It doesnt say KSP is looking for a lead developer, it says Squad is.

/thread

[Gordon Fecyk]

I'd be good at testing, but I haven't written code since hacking Quake II to behave on non-admin accounts. And I've been doing IT for the past dog's age; not sure they need that.

[Kerbart]

12 hours ago, Snark said:

It's also worth noting that pretty much any company where things are going well is going to be looking to hire people, basically all the time.  Because if things are going well, it means your business is increasing, which means you want to get more engineers so you can do even more business.

So when you see a company saying "we're hiring", that's generally a good sign.  When a company stops hiring is when you generally want to watch out-- a hiring freeze is often a prelude to layoffs, and can be an indicator that things are not going so well.

My program is in great shape! I'm hiring fresh capsule meat Kerbals all the time! One of these days we might even make it into orbit. In one part, that is. We assume plenty of what we launch makes it into space already. Where else did the parts we don't recover go to?