Everyone knows the past years have been quite challenging for the game industry as a job market. In light of the massive layoffs we've seen in 2024, I decided to start a job board curating test automation related jobs in games.
Now it's been a year and I've kept data on every job that has been posted on the board. This post goes through some observable trends.
Average time online
This is something I regularly talk about: finding people with the right skills to develop test automation in video games is hard. So it's not surprising that such job postings tend to stay online longer than others. My data shows the average time a job posting for test automation stays online is 80 days. Compare that to the tech industry at large where the time-to-fill a position is between 20 to 30 days on average.
Of course averages are sensitive to outliers, but even the median is around 60 days. Also keep in mind that this data corresponds to a job market where a lot of talents are available for hire due to layoffs.
Most in-demand programming language
C# is the most demanded skill when it comes to programming languages. C++ is just behind but not by much. Python is regularly mentioned but comes third.
I personally wouldn't bother learning anything other than these 3 since they cover many paradigms that can be transferred to other stacks.
Most in-demand game engine
We're all prone to enjoy a friendly debate about game engines. So which one is the most demanded for test automation jobs?
Well sorry to tell you, but neither Unreal nor Unity comes ahead, they occupy an equal part of the postings.
Moreover while proprietary engines are way behind, the demand for them is not 0 either.
I guess the key insight here is to be ready to be flexible, and learn both Unreal and Unity. While you cannot really learn a proprietary engine on your own, it's unlikely their paradigms will stray far from what Unity or Unreal offers.
Companies posting the most test automation jobs
Epic is without a doubt the company looking the most for SDETs.
The next one is Wargaming.
Location with the most test automation jobs
Without much surprise the US is the location hiring the most. It is followed by the UK and Sweden.
You will also be happy to hear remote positions in the US are ahead of any specific city.
However if you really look at city based positions, Cary in North Carolina is number 1, then it's London in the UK. Epic is likely tilting the balance here since Cary is where most of their QA teams are.
I wouldn't recommend relocating yourself based on that, because of the regular layoffs happening in the industry. But if you're based in the US it seems you're more likely to snatch a test automation job.
Most used titles in job postings
Automated game testing is at the intersection of 3 things: game development, QA, and software engineering. So when it comes to titles, it is a bit all over the place and you can see that reflected in the job postings.
However there are 2 that stand out:
- Software Development Engineer in Test
- QA Automation Engineer
Then you might find Test Automation Engineer, QA Engineer, or Automation Engineer, but those are more rare.
Conclusion
Beyond the visible trends that may not be so surprising, what is more interesting is what is missing from the job postings: tools. Specific tools like GameDriver, AltTester, or the Unity Test Framework are rarely mentioned at all.
So if you plan to get hired as a SDET for video games, learning the tools isn’t necessarily the most important thing, but rather learning the tech stack is: learn C#, maybe C++ as well, and make sure you know your way around both Unity and Unreal.