Contract job opportunities for Train Sim fans

[Sakson]

Our client, a major gaming/software/internet company in Redmond, is looking for 3D artists to work on a next generation train simulator title. They're also looking for a researcher with a solid understanding of railroading.

3D Artist requirements:
- Strong 3D Studio Max skills.
- Ability to quickly and accurately model real world objects including buildings and rolling stock.
- A passion for railroading.

Researcher:
- Strong passion for and knowledge of railroading.
- Ability to quickly and accurately collect a wide range of information.
- Excellent ability to organize and track data.
- Solid Excel skills.

These are contract (temporary) positions with full benefits. Work must be performed on-site in Redmond, WA.

Interested candidates should send their resume to: jobscl <at> sakson.com

[OTTODAD]

Here is more on that !

http://www.sakson.com/company/clients/company_clients.aspx

And here is what this person will have to compete with, being provided for KRS it is said and would also have to know all about the physics involved ! ;-)

A member pointed out that this was intended for MSTS-2:
http://www.theprojectzoo.com/services_outveh.html

but some of this is what they are doing for KRS now, he says:
http://www.theprojectzoo.com/services_outenv.html

Either way it will be a challenge ! ;-)

O t t o

[landnrailroader]

Definitely out of my league, and besides, I don't like Seattle well enough to want to live there. 24 hours in 1/99 was long enough for me, although the people we encountered were quite friendly. However, there was the famous or infamous drizzle the whole time we were there and that could get depressing after a while.

Jerry Sullivan
aka landnrailroader

[NickF]

Ya know how ya can tell when it's summer in Seattle? The rain gets warmer.

Nick

[rfranzosa]

Sort of ironic that a company working to "own" the internet needs you to be on site. :+

Rick

[ChrisS68]

how about someone with railroad experience and proficiency with LightWave? Hey, LightWave can be ported to 3D Studio! ;)

Chris

[OTTODAD]

Sort of ironic that a company working to "own" the internet needs you to be on site. :+

Sorry, Rick, can you translate into plain English what you mean by that ? ;-)

O t t o

[NickF]

I think what he meant is, why would you need to live in Redmond when you could do 95% of the work remotely by telecommuting from anywhere on the planet.

Nick

[OTTODAD]

Thanks, Nick !

Yes, that is funny ! :7

That is what cheap "Outsourcing" is all about these days, putting many Western world programmers out of work ! :-(

Take care, O t t o.

[Sakson]

Actually our contractors enjoy better benefits than many FTE's at local game studios. They also don't work 60+ hours/week. As for poor Western programmers, all of our contractors happen to be Americans, we're not an H1-B import shop. Personally, I don't buy the poor programmers bit seeing how most of them make a lot more money than teachers or research scientists despite having less education and making less of a contribution to society.

[OTTODAD]

Personally, I don't buy the poor programmers bit seeing how most of them make a lot more money than teachers or research scientists despite having less education and making less of a contribution to society.

I was thinking of computing graduates like my daughter, a Bachelor of Science in English and History and a Master in Computing.

She is an ORACLE consultant with IBM in Copenhagen and has just handed over her area of consultancy to an outfit in Calcutta, India, having spent a week there doing it.

Fortunately for her, being a valuable asset of IBM, she got offered to take over the IBM contract with CARLSBERG in Copenhagen which she has accepted.

As for my son, there is no danger of him having to look for alternative employment soon, unless NOVELL do something stupid now that they have entered into some sort of partnership with MICROSOFT ! :7

O t t o

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/116882.jpg

[Turbo Bill]

Got the railroad experiance but have never played with Lightwave. I also have some access to getting many railroad related sounds but, I have no desire to go to Redmond for months. Would be willing to give advice and test.

[OTTODAD]

Hi Bill !

Do you know any good track joint sounds, as good as RAILWAVES, but Freeware ?

Take care, O t t o.

[Sakson]

Lightwave probably isn't a problem so long as you can make the adjustment to working in 3D Max. You can download a trial copy from the Autodesk site.

The Redmond thing isn't really negotiable. It seems strange in this age of the internet but there are still a lot of good reasons to have people working together in the same location - especially when working a major title. Kind of like how it's usually a lot easier and faster to sketch something out with a pen and paper rather than firing up PhotoShop.

[Turbo Bill]

Better yet Otto, I am going to go out and get new actual sounds to build a new set of wagon railsounds. I was going to do it payware but will probably make it a freeware project if there is enough interest. These will be highly detailed and best yet compressed wave sounds that will play regular speed in the sim thus saving diskspace and download bandwidth plus other added cool features.

to the subject at hand, I do offer my assistance to MS for the new sim is whatever capacity that is determined necessary. PM me here for initial contact.

[goldenpig]

Speaking from experience, there is nothing wrong with working contract for MS. It's how I was able to land my job with them... though there is no promise of employment it is certainly a foot in the door of an amazing company to work for. While working contract I was given a much better salary and benefits package than the full-time company I had previously worked for. And it only got even better having been hired full-time with MS.

As for the interent thing, there are several reasons they don't/can't do that. The major one being working side by side with the team. Being able to address immediate problems that crop up in an average work day. And as far as I understand, benefits can only be given to you when you are on site... again, that was how it was explained to me.

Believe me if I weren't already pretty very happy in Texas I would be in Redmond right now. ;-) }( heh heh heh.

Silliness aside, even a contract opportunity is a great step in a career in games...

[jalsina]

>[font color=blue]

>She is an ORACLE consultant with IBM in Copenhagen and has
>just handed over her area of consultancy to an outfit in
>Calcutta, India, having spent a week there doing it.
[font color=green]

The software companies there, pay something like $100-200 A MONTH to fully IT graduated Indian pros. These companies (most at Bangalore) are outsourced by big corporations like IBM, HP, etc.
Where I learnt this? The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman

So the MSTS-X coding could be written there.

There is still steam locos over there, right? ;-) ;-)

Jorge

[OTTODAD]

The software companies there, pay something like $100-200 A MONTH to fully IT graduated Indian pros.

Not only that, many large corporations are also re-locating their Telephone Tech.Help and Support departments to India and making them understand what you are talking about it not always easy, nor is understanding what they are saying, such long distance phone calls not helping either ! ;-)

O t t o

[jalsina]

>
>The Redmond thing isn't really negotiable. It seems strange in
>this age of the internet but there are still a lot of good
>reasons to have people working together in the same location -
>especially when working a major title. Kind of like how it's
>usually a lot easier and faster to sketch something out with a
>pen and paper rather than firing up PhotoShop.
>

It's nice to hear that there are still IT companies alive, trying to develop teams more than trying to split them all over the world and use virtual project management. I do agree that a team put together, with nice planning, a good project control system and a strong support with a PMO (and maybe some other systems) will perform much better.

Five years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a virtual alpha/beta team (which I can't talk about it), in direct contact with Redmond developers of the before called Games Division. It was pretty neat and an interesting experience. It was a pity the product was not so successfull.

BTW, Don't you need a pro in project management?

Jorge

[muskokaandtahoe]

My last employer - a world wide high tech firm -- let go of all its I.T. Software people -- IRC about 1500 people -- and "replaced" them w/ staff in India. My last assignment was to train my own replacement on a particular project. I was (at the time) an expert level Enterprise Data Architect; any enterprise-wide architect in a large company is about the highest vocational level you can go in any I.T. organization anywhere. That level of accomplishment certainly didn't protect me.

I've said it before and no doubt will repeat it again after today: any job whose work product can be delivered over the internet is a strong candidate to be offshored.

I've been in plenty of project meetings -- always on the phone... everything in a world-wide company is done via long distance voice and data comm -- with staff in 3 time zones in the US AND Scotland, Germany and Singapore ALL ON THE SAME CALL, so working with a distributed staff, while at times awkward, is no big deal. Moving the European and North American jobs to India is really no different than say, having a few more people in Atlanta or Singapore instead of California or Colorado. It's nothing out of the ordinary. Until it's your job that moves.

There was a fellow I hired out of college some decades ago... he was Korean, lived in the states only 4 years before I hired him. Great guy. He did very well in his career and moved into I.T. management and rose up where he had managers reporting to him with their own staff located on 3 continents. Then came a bit of software for managers that let him see the FTE numbers, with local currency and equivalent dollars for PT&B expenses -- worldwide, for all of the peeple that reported up to him. He looked at the numbers and said "I'll never hire another employee in Europe or North America again". And that was that.

[b]Dave Nelson
SLW Route Design: The Cal-P, 1950.[b]
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/Dancing_Genma.gif
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/4ad3d633.jpg

[jalsina]

>My last employer - a world wide high tech firm -- let go of
>all its I.T. ...............
>
>Dave Nelson


I'm sorry I continue posting these comments, but I believe it will have a lot to do with future sims quality and maybe this very same MSTS-X.

First, I wonder what is the achieved quality of the Asian outsourced work compared to that in the States?

Another point. I have read that while your people is working during the day in your headquarters somewhere in North Caroline, Washington or California, the outsourced people in India can work while you sleep and have the follow-up work on your desktop early at 8 AM. So be aware also that while you were sleeping you could have lost your job. Uh! :7

Third. Security clearance and very high tech work will never trespass certain limits (and frontiers). I wonder here if Microsoft would like Indians "to learn" about Windows, Office, Train Simulator, etc. So here can be another "why" about all being made in Redmond. Then, when you look for a job, choose the right employer :9

And the best of all. Establish your own business with foreign outsourced tasks and take a big share out of the hands of your former employer that fired you.}( x(

Jorge

[Sakson]

Of course all this talk about outsourcing IT work is somewhat irrelevant since the positions are for 3D Artists which are hardly considered to be IT workers. Saying a 3D Artist is an IT worker just because they work on a computer and create computer games is kind of like saying a writer at the NY Times is an IT worker because he uses Word and e-mail and his work appears on a web site.

[muskokaandtahoe]

I guess I get to repeat myself sooner than expected.

Any job with a work product that can be delivered over the internet is a candidate for outsourcing. I just happened to be an I.T. worker and so I wrote about that.

3D artists? A natural to go. Right now in Japan they're outsoucing the in-betweener artists... the people who draw the animation between the key frames. Depending on the frame rate used, that's 11 out of 12 images, 15 of 16 images, 23 of 24 images, or 31 of 32 images. That's a lot of art.

Initial offshoring went to Korea. It's now going to the Philipines and China.

There is no reason whatsoever to assume 3d modeling for a game needs to be done on site with the rest of the development team. None whatsoever.

As for your example of a writer for the NY Times. If he gets all his material himself as a reporter, he probably will continue to write his own story. If he gets material collected by others, his job can be offshored. If India is too far (as measured by time zones), there's places in the Caribbian that can do the job. Scan the notes, e-mail them, get the article backa few hours later... probably at 10-20% the cost -- or less -- than having somebody in NYC do the same work.

I was reading something just the other day in the Wall St. Journal from a dyed-in-the-wool Free Trade economist who estimates 40+ million white collar jobs in the US are offshored in the next 20 years. That's a lot of jobs.


[b]Dave Nelson
SLW Route Design: The Cal-P, 1950.[b]
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/Dancing_Genma.gif
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y51/muskokaandtahoe/Avatars/4ad3d633.jpg

[ChrisS68]

I don't get it; someone posts a job opening - a pretty darned cool one at that, and the thread degenerates into how all the jobs are being shipped overseas. I must've missed the part that said that being a resident of India was one of the job requirements. Either you're interested in the job or you're not. If you don't like the employer's stipulations, fine, don't apply. If you're afraid to take a job because you might be let go, I got news for you; no job is absolutely safe (not even Otto's son's job). The job isn't permanent anyway, so that's one less thing to worry about. I appreciate Sakson posting the opening here, and being willing to respond to the various questions and responses. Hopefully it will benefit someone who's actually interested in the job. If you want to discuss the plight of the Western I.T. worker, perhaps a seperate thread is in order.

Chris

[ChrisS68]

I can't say I've had first-hand experience, as I've had steady employment since getting into multimedia, but my understanding is that contract work is pretty much how it's done in the entertainment/DCC business - you go where the work is. Kinda like the boomer trail. Companies hire on a project-by-project basis. It doesn't make sense to keep a huge staff when there's no project for them to work on. Certainly, having Microsoft on the ol' resume cannot be a bad thing down the road.

Chris

[jalsina]

>Of course all this talk about outsourcing IT work is somewhat
>irrelevant since the positions are for 3D Artists which are
>hardly considered to be IT workers. Saying a 3D Artist is an
>IT worker just because they work on a computer and create
>computer games is kind of like saying a writer at the NY Times
>is an IT worker because he uses Word and e-mail and his work
>appears on a web site.


Yes the talk is irrelevant for the thread subject, but interesting indeed. And is as irrelevant as this place to recruit personnel for this purpose.

As of if it's IT or not, M$ lead dev will think of the modelling designer as one of his resources, part of his IT project.

I don't think you know what making an MSTS or FS model means, besides the usage of a tool like 3D Studio (or any other modelling program for that purpose).

For example in a steam engine, you have to find the right empathy between the model and textures, and by the other side, the ENG, sound and cab designs (as well as historical/technical knowledge).

I don't know if you are aware that for doing "good" cab design in the different flight simulator versions, we needed designing instruments that required to know coding in C++ and other simpler languages.

Producing an add-on set of products may be as challenging for 3 or 4 individuals or a small company, as the full game design for M$, and does require thinking in IT terms.

There is however, a big difference. We care for support of our users and we hurry to fix any problems found by them. And we never leave them alone to guess how this or that works in our add-on (just to mention one of the M$ vices, repeated over and over) as leaving us alone with that piece of crap that is the route editor

It has been required thousands of IT mini-efforts to get this MSTS1 alive after six years.

Now tell me that this is not IT project management. :-)

Jorge

[OTTODAD]

Hi Jorge !

Yes "Outsourcing" is relevant ! There are many talented graphics designers and games coders in countries getting paid a fraction of what similar can earn in the USA or the UK and contracting some of a project's coding to cheaper sources can save a lot of money ! ;-)

MSTSBin George is but one such source ! :7

O t t o

[jalsina]

>
>MSTSBin George is but one such source ! :7
>
>O t t o

There you have a guy to hire !!!

[plainsman]

As to railroad research, I would be happy to provide whatever assistance is desired. If you want someone in Redmond, will you relocate appropriately for the duration of the contract? If you need a resume, just do a file search in the library under Boudoin and Boudin(sic).
Bob Boudoin

[plainsman]

0
My firewall must have been blocking this posting, when I disabled it for a few minutes, three messages posted? There used to be a remove function, but I don't see it anymore? ;(
Bob

[plainsman]

1 :D

[plainsman]

2 :)