Every so often, I find it interesting to check out the Job Offering at Asobo (as Advertised on their website).
While I personally are not looking to apply to any of their advertised position it is informative to see what positions are being advertised, (ie MSFS: ATC Programmer . MSFS: Flight Planning Programmer etc), to see how that might correspond to what is being announced to be worked on and improved.)
Today, an interesting change.
in the past, the Job offerings were all in English.
Now almost all of them are in French, and are located at Asobo, as opposed to the previously open âremoteâ positions .
(Reduced Covid - work at home factor ??)
Also now I cannot see the previously advertised âATC Programmer Jobsâ being offered, (or maybe my French is that bad that I cannot spot them !!)
Maybe GOOD NEWS - they hired an ATC Programmer ??
Anyway, not to read too much into any of this, but itâs something to look at instead of waiting Hour by Hour for the Su12 Update to magically appear.
In some tech companies in Europe, English is the default working language locally as well as remotely. If you have staff spread out among multiple countries, itâs more or less the default option because itâs the one language most people will have in common. I have a friend who works in tech in Berlin and he says despite most of the staff of his company being German, they all use English as a working language, so much so that heâs not had to learn more than basic German to be able to live and work there.
My experience with French tech companies and my French friends who work for them suggests that French is very much the working language day to day. It would be interesting to know how it works within Asobo, given their close working relationship with Microsoft and other (presumably) primarily English-speaking groups like Working Title and 3rd party devs.
Using job postings to work out what companies are working on is a time-honoured technique, though, along with checking patent filings
I assume you must be talking about the skills that are NOT mentioned in the brief job descriptions
Finding professional, experienced Software Developers, who are BOTH seasoned developers, WITH the required Aviation background knowledge & experience, must be difficult.
Tempting any away that are already on a career path in the aviation industry, to join a Games Dev Company, with very different development methods, on a limited time project with an uncertain future, might be a challenge.
Itâs not a career path change I would ever have considered !
As an American software dev who worked at a French dev company in France many years ago (FS98 was latest at the time!) even though we worked with an American company French was used anytime no Americans were present but almost all coding comments were in English. Yeah, I often browse the job listings too. Not sure if working on msfs as a full-time job would take some of the fun out of it thoughâŠ
Not to digress, but Michelin stars only go up to 3. So if youâre a 5-Michelin star chef, you must be a pretty darn good one! (Or maybe you have two restaurants!)
I think the idea of having an interest in aviation is certainly understandable. Whether youâre knowledgeable or not, having an interest could correlate with being more willing to learn about a subject. A few years ago, I applied for a job at a software company that services the restaurant industry, and in my cover letter, I took a few sentences to explain that I was a foodie and had knowledge of how restaurants worked.
With the caveat that I work on the Community Team and am not a dev responsible for squashing pesky bugs in the code which might not be as fun, I can confirm that working full-time on the MSFS team is a dream come true and doesnât take away from my enjoyment of flight simming at all. I still get excited to start my work day every single day.
Iâm far from an expert on this, (Even if I can make toast !!) but I believe a Restaurant can only get up to a 3 start rating, but a CHIEF, can have been associated with more than 3 Stars.
Ie David Ramsey :
âRamsay is associated with seven current Michelin Stars, but throughout his career his restaurants have earned a total of 17 starsâ
Maybe MSFS Devs should get awarded similar token of their achievements -
An individual restaurant can be awarded up to a maximum of 3 Michelin Stars. When you read that Chef Gordon Ramsey has earned 17 stars, itâs because he owns many restaurants around the world, and combined those restaurants have collectively earned a total of 17 stars.
Iâve got a couple of good friends who work as coders for Rockstar Games here in Edinburgh working on Grand Theft Auto.
They hate Grand Theft Auto
Seriously though it sounds like if you spend all your working day on a game at a nuts and bolts level pretty much the last thing you want to in your free time is play the same game.
Maybe flight sim is a bit different though. Its a different sort of experience.
My experience as a software dev on large/complex projects is youâre focused on just one aspect of the program. msfs definitely qualifies as large and complex so Iâm sure devs are mainly focused on their areas. After spending 40+ hours on that Iâd personally find it more difficult to want to spend my recreation time in the sim.
I keep hoping theyâll fill that âATC devâ spot so we weâll see improvements in that area. I think that would be a fun area to work on as well.
When I worked at Lockheed Martin for the Air Force in IT, I met a few ex-controllers, they where all in IT infrastructure as I was and not developers. But there may be some out there.
No programmer here, but did work in IT. Believe itâs important to have working knowledge of aircraft and systems so those concepts can be explained and developed. As stated, I have interest in food, not any kind of chef, but I can do basic cooking if I feel the need to eat, and no one else is fixing food. Mostly the GF does the food, and I do the yard work, and honey-dos. That seems to work.
I suspect I have enough basic knowledge of airplane operations to be mildly successful in this sim and the other one. But aint never going to be programmer, and the older I get, the harder it is to learn and want to fight the frustrations this one throws at me. That is why mandatory retirement for all CA pilots in USA is 65. Truck drivers as well. But politicians and doctors/dentists do not have mandatory retirement, and they work on people. Go figure.
There is a surprisingly large community out there of commercial pilots who are also software developers. The software side is usually a hobby for obvious reasons, but I know a guy who is a Captain for BA who is big in the .NET IoT community, maintains a bunch of projects, speaks at conferences etc, and he has many friends / contacts who are also âpilots who codeâ.
There are bound to be controllers out there who also code, but youâre right, the very best way to build highly domain-specific software is to put together great software developers and domain experts on a dedicated team.
(Or maybe you have two restaurants!)