Claire Oliver

How did university prepare you for your career?

Before uni I had never seen a line of code, let alone written one, and I had been out of education for ten years. By the end of the course I was able to write code extremely well and make games of my own. My course gave me the skills I needed to change my career path from hospitality to the games industry. The lecturers also helped me prepare for the interview process - what was going to be expected of me, what a coding test was, how to present myself, what should be on my portfolio, and even how to dress for an interview.

Tell us your career story so far

After graduating, I worked for the University as a graduate associate for the computer games courses. A few months into working for Solent, a job became available with Unity Technologies. I contacted the recruiter and asked how I could apply. Instead of a formal application, he looked at my LinkedIn profile, my CV and my portfolio, which are all online, and decided that I was perfect for the role. I then had multiple Skype interviews, a programming test and a two hour interview in the office. A week later I was told I had the job.

Tell us about what you're doing now and what it involves

I do a multitude of different things depending on what happens that day. Recently, I’ve found and successfully reproduced and reported a bug to the right people so it can be fixed; supported large, well-known companies with day-to-day account management, bug reporting and troubleshooting. I've also supported small indie companies with services integration, showing them how to make the most money off their games; and helped debug code to highlight errors in companies of varying sizes.