Meet two QUT grads who both landed awesome creative tech jobs in gaming
A uni networking event landed QUT grads Rachel Hempenstall and Oliver Van Dyk roles at Gameloft, a computer game publisher with 18 studios worldwide, including in Brisbane
“Our job as QA [quality assurance] testers is to try and break the game,” Rachel explains. Rachel and Oliver met while studying a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments at QUT. In the third year of their degree, they worked together on a cool project creating a VR training simulation for helicopter marshalling at aerospace company Airbus.
Oliver says his QUT degree study was the perfect background to create the training simulation: “Companies are coming to game engines to really immerse people in the experience.”
It was when Rachel and Oliver were attending a Women in Tech networking event at QUT in their third year that they first connected with Gameloft Brisbane. They were invited to take a tour of the Gameloft studio and show off their VR project. That was in October – by December, three out of the four project team members were offered jobs!
Oliver says such events are an important part of study at QUT: “There’s always a chance to meet new people or a future employer.”
Levelling up
Both Rachel and Oliver plan to climb the job ladder at Gameloft, from QA testing to their dream careers. With a passion for coding, Oliver’s goal is to work in game-play programming: “Everything from dragging and dropping items to fighting the monster.”
Rachel has a fine arts background and is interested in animation and 3D modelling. She’s creating a portfolio of objects such as buildings, plants and people. Then she adds textures to make them look realistic and animates moving objects.
“I’m very much enjoying playing games for a living and know that I’ll be able to progress to where I want to go,” Rachel says.
Rachel’s pathway
- 3D Generalist and UI Artist, Airbus Helicopters
- Bachelor of games and interactive Environments, QUT
- QA Tester, Gameloft
Oliver’s pathway
- Teaching assistant, Code Camp
- Unity developer and systems programmer, Airbus Helicopters
- Bachelor of Games and Interactive Environments, QUT
This article was brought to you in partnership with the QUT and was originally published in Careers with STEM: Technology.
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