Who wants to work at Wizards?

[Pinder]

There's a lady who does PR for a company that I make copies for who used to do PR for Wizards of the Coast. She knows I play Magic, and occasionally she'll give me free shit that she can get from her friends at the firm she used to work at when she did Wizards' PR. Like the free Lorwyn Fat Pack I'm staring at right now. I know, it's awesome.

But what does this have to do with working at Wizards, you ask. Well, along with this fat pack she forwarded me an e-mail she got from someone she knows in Wizards about a job opening. Specifically, this job opening:



If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your help. Please take a look and forward this job on to anyone you think would be interested in the position, or anyone else who could help me find a great candidate.

Thanks for your help!
-Brandon

Company: Wizards of the Coast
Job Title: Sr. Software Developer
Description: POSITION PURPOSE: The Server developer works closely with other members of the Magic: The Gathering Online development staff to design and implement functionality in the massively multi-player online server system.

Responsibilities



Essential Functions / Major Responsibilities:

• Develops functional specifications based on vision & scope provided by the Development Manager, both alone and in conjunction with other developers.

• Implements functional specifications on Linux and Windows systems, primarily in C++, Lua, and C#

• Performs literate programming, using adequate commenting and documentation tools

• Adopts industry standard and team specific coding practices

• Provides reasonable estimates of time and materials required to complete goals outlined in vision & scope provided by Development Manager

• Mentors and guides junior level team members to improve in quality and effectiveness.

• Performs Code and Architectural reviews of the project in development to ensure quality and coding standards are met.

• Designs and implements unit tests to ensure that the coding quality remains high



Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Ability to work effectively with diverse groups of people.

• Highly motivated self-starter with attention to detail.

• In-depth knowledge of the C++, LUA, and C# and associated API’s at a senior level.

• Commitment to industry standard code practices and literate programming style.

• Expertise in Object Oriented design and patterns.

• Highly motivated self-starter with attention to detail

Experience

Education and Training:

• Required: Bachelors degree in computer science or equivalent experience.



Prior Related Experience:

• Required: 2-4 years working with C++, Lua, and C# on Linux and Windows Platforms at a senior level

• 2-4 years experience working with pthreads or other multi-threaded library on Linux

• 2-4 years working with the Standard Template Library (STL)

• 2-4 years experience working with multi-threaded libraries in the targeted platform

• 2-4 years of Object Oriented design experience.

• Preferred: 1 year experience working with e-commerce and fraud systems

• Preferred: 1 year experience working with online games

• 2-4 years working with build tools (such as automake and autocon or Nant)

• 2-4 years working with source control system (such as cvs or Perforce)


Now, I don't have the programming experience to do this job (but I really wish I did), so I figured I'd throw it out here to see if there's anyone in the Seattle area (or willing to relocate) that fits the bill to do software development at Wizards.

If you're interested, tell me, so I can tell her, so she can tell the guy at Wizards.

Any takers?

[Nihil Credo]

Am I the only one that reads that as "HALP SM1 FIX MTGO3 PLZ!!!1!"?

[Pinder]

Am I the only one that reads that as "HALP SM1 FIX MTGO3 PLZ!!!1!"?

Ha, I actually think it's mostly for development on The Goblin Game (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=goblinz/welcome)

[Roman Candle]

Ask her if they have a janitor job plz... I would love to get paid to clean up MaRo's bullshit.

[Pinder]

Ask her if they have a janitor job plz... I would love to get paid to clean up MaRo's bullshit.

You'd certainly have job security.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Ha, I actually think it's mostly for development on The Goblin Game (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=goblinz/welcome)Not nessesarly, Flash uses Action Script, not the prerequisite C++, C#, or Lua.

That and the thing about fraud systems makes me think Magic Online.

[freakish777]

Description: POSITION PURPOSE: The Server developer works closely with other members of the Magic: The Gathering Online development staff to design and implement functionality in the massively multi-player online server system.
No way in hell do I want to have anything to do professionally with the trainwreck that is Magic Online (not to mention I have never heard of Lua before today, though it appears to be similar to Scheme from the code snippets on it's Wiki page).



EDIT: In all seriousness, Wizards needs to -

A) Revert to 2.5
B) round up 10~20 out of house "testers" for Magic Online from the community
C) Hire a professional Project Manager who can actually get Use Cases out of this group.
D) Actually write quality code that meets the Use Cases that are specified by real users. Not what they think users want.

I certainly don't care whatsoever if the game "looks pretty." I find navigating my way around the Draft Tables on MTGO much more frustrating than finding a Chess game on http://games.yahoo.com/ch

Write code that meets real user's use case (most importantly, "Doesn't Crash," "Can see the game I'm playing," "Can navigate 'rooms' easily without lag from stupid avatars being displayed"), it really can't be that difficult.

[Zilla]

Not nessesarly, Flash uses Action Script, not the prerequisite C++, C#, or Lua.
Agreed. Flash applications require no programming knowledge outside of Actionscript 2 or 3, possibly excepting some other web-based programming like javascript or php for integration with the rest of the web interface.

This job description is almost certainly for a programmer to fix MTGO, if not rewrite it from the ground up.

[Pinder]

This job description is almost certainly for a programmer to fix MTGO, if not rewrite it from the ground up.

Fine then. Does anybody actually want to do that?

[Tosh]

(not to mention I have never heard of Lua before today, though it appears to be similar to Scheme from the code snippets on it's Wiki page).

World of Warcraft AddOns use Lua so it's definitely pretty well known.

If it wasn't for school, and the lack of experience and education I would apply for this.

[DeathwingZERO]

Fine then. Does anybody actually want to do that?

No. No way in hell. In fact, I've heard so many horror stories about programmers that were either fired or quit because they COULDN'T do their job properly, thanks to Wizards only caring about specific bugs and game flaws, not all of them.

If I had even a fraction of that programming experience, I'd tell them up front I wanted full access to work on whatever the players told us was wrong, not just what Wizards wanted fixed. Otherwise nothing would get done, like it is now.

[emidln]

No. No way in hell. In fact, I've heard so many horror stories about programmers that were either fired or quit because they COULDN'T do their job properly, thanks to Wizards only caring about specific bugs and game flaws, not all of them.

If I had even a fraction of that programming experience, I'd tell them up front I wanted full access to work on whatever the players told us was wrong, not just what Wizards wanted fixed. Otherwise nothing would get done, like it is now.

Users are fairly stupid and it's fatal to trust them. You'd be be better off asking for a real spec from some other division/department detailing exactly what needs to be done.

[AnwarA101]

There's a lady who does PR for a company that I make copies for who used to do PR for Wizards of the Coast. She knows I play Magic, and occasionally she'll give me free shit that she can get from her friends at the firm she used to work at when she did Wizards' PR. Like the free Lorwyn Fat Pack I'm staring at right now. I know, it's awesome.

But what does this have to do with working at Wizards, you ask. Well, along with this fat pack she forwarded me an e-mail she got from someone she knows in Wizards about a job opening. Specifically, this job opening:



Now, I don't have the programming experience to do this job (but I really wish I did), so I figured I'd throw it out here to see if there's anyone in the Seattle area (or willing to relocate) that fits the bill to do software development at Wizards.

If you're interested, tell me, so I can tell her, so she can tell the guy at Wizards.

Any takers?

I'm defintiely interested. My first job out of college was developing software in C++. I ofcourse live out on the east coast, but I would definitely consider relocating especially if it was something I was interested. I've been looking for another place to work anyway and this seems pretty interesting. Pinder can you pm me and let me know more about this position.

[Skogen]

World of Warcraft AddOns use Lua so it's definitely pretty well known.

If it wasn't for school, and the lack of experience and education I would apply for this.

I wouldn't let that stop you. I'd say you should go in for an interview and tell them about your mastery of Null Pointers and Heap overflows combined with your OOP expertise in Turbo Pascal and commitment to the industry standard (of turbo pascal that is) will help develop a stable and fun product to use every time. Other things to mention should include but are not limited to:

Their neglect for their 3.1x user base.
Lack of Turbo Vision variants in their UI.
Lack of optimized inline assembly.
And of course, how much better this program could've been if they had used QuickBasic.

Oh, and you should print out this picture and hand it in with your resume as proof of your awesomeness:

http://skode.org/random/seriousbusiness.png

[DeathwingZERO]

Users are fairly stupid and it's fatal to trust them. You'd be be better off asking for a real spec from some other division/department detailing exactly what needs to be done.

When it comes down to issues with a simple resolution of an ability (Grave Pact working incorrectly for a time, for example), or a spell just not resolving right (Shining Shoal not working as intended through Oracle Text because of bad programming for the card's template), users are a pretty consistent go-to guy when the response is en masse.

It's not a matter of going to them and saying "What's wrong with MTGO?" and expecting to get an answer, but when primarily casual cards aren't updated just because their sponsored tournament structures don't use them, that's just bad programming in general. And the fact that some of the cards I personally knew to be wrong were like that for months, it makes for a pretty shitty foundation of trust. Basically, again they show they don't care about the masses, just what brings in the most money.

[freakish777]

World of Warcraft AddOns use Lua so it's definitely pretty well known.

My comment about Lua was moreso pointing out the fact that even if for some insane reason I did want to be professionally involved with MTGO, I likely am not the "ideal candidate" due to having never written anything in Lua.

@emidln, no real users are to be trusted, just not when they give you the requirements themselves. When they give you the requirements themselves they give you what they think they want. When you get the requirements from an actual professional PM who's spent several hours with the users listening to them and taking notes, you get requirements for what they need instead.