EA Montreal is now Visceral Montreal

[Furyo]

Oh please... I'm so sick and tired of this "grunts Vs leads vs managers" mentality...For all the bullshit grunts throw around at the "suits that don't get it", there is a metric ton of fucktards that don't know their left hand from their right and couldn't possibly get anything done by themselves.

Good teams make good games, and everyone has his role to fulfill. People that don't get what leads and managers do only prove they should never climb to these positions themselves. Same thing for the salary.

[Defrag]

Leads don't necessarily get paid much more (or even any more at all) -- it depends on the company and position. Some companies offer a dual career ladder where you can progress as a technical specialist and earn just as much as a lead. Others will offer a lot more money for leads. It just depends.

Lead the guys who do the REAL job and keep the BIG BUCKS.

That's a pretty naive outlook. If you've ever worked under leads of variable quality, you'll know why good leads are worth their weight in gold. I moved team about 5 times at RTW and the difference in productivity / effectiveness from team to team can be very noticeable. When an excellent lead is involved, they pro-actively identify and solve problems, offer support (either moral or technical) when needed, mentor team members and help foster a culture of self-improvement. The notion that you only do real work when sitting at a desk producing code/art assets etc. is totally ridiculous. I know you may have been half-joking when you said that, but it's a bit of a disservice to the awesome leads who really do make a huge difference Two of the most effective leads I worked under spent less than half of their time developing despite being in fairly small teams.

The flipside is that some folk just aren't cut out for it. Some leads basically end up either ignoring most of their responsibilities and spend the maximum amount of time in the trenches. Someone can be an excellent developer and a lousy lead, but they take the job because there's more money on offer, or they feel they have to due to management pressure. Others just don't have the required personal qualities to lead teams, but fail to develop on the job and also receive a lack of support from management.

So yeah, don't be hatin' on leads. I wouldn't mind being a lead one day

[Ginger Lord]

Over here at least the leads are equivalent to senior seniors. We have production managers/producers that deal with the paperwork. Whilst they may do more paperwork (which depends on department) than a senior, the majority of their day is still hands on.

That said being in the design department we do spend a lot of time in meetings/writing anyway

[Tisky]

Crap, i did not mean that they dont do any work. Meant more in a way that for me making the maps is the fun (real) job or nevermind since i was not serious about what i wrote anyway. Thanks for sharing your views, it actually helped alot! One could say they are important since they exist!

I really hope you understand what i meant

[FrieChamp]

Oh please... I'm so sick and tired of this "grunts Vs leads vs managers" mentality...For all the bullshit grunts throw around at the "suits that don't get it", there is a metric ton of fucktards that don't know their left hand from their right and couldn't possibly get anything done by themselves.

Good teams make good games, and everyone has his role to fulfill. People that don't get what leads and managers do only prove they should never climb to these positions themselves. Same thing for the salary.

Furyo - taking design n00bs to school since 2006!

[Furyo]

Oh I'm a noob too, but at least I don't claim to know what I'm doing

In all seriousness, sorry for the heated reply there. It wasn't even a bad day, just that I keep hearing this generally from juniors with no clues in all teams I've worked with. I'm sure I have said the same thing when I started too, but with experience and the teams I've worked with you understand that you're really just a noob with a very narrow view of the overall picture most of the time.