Technology Careers in the Esports Industry

Technology Careers in the Esports Industry

By Marcus Clarke

Are you a technology professional who might be considering a new career move? You would do well to consider a career in the Esports industry.

Never heard of Esports before, or have a mental image of a few lonely teenage boys holed up in their bedrooms playing online video games 24/7? Think again, because online gaming is now a slick multi-million-dollar industry, and is growing year on year.

Big businesses like Coca-Cola and Redbull have recognized the potential in Esports, and they spend huge sums sponsoring the best teams and players. The games are streamed live to the millions of fans around the world, and the players are treated as celebrities.

But something as heavily technology reliant as online video gaming has a growing need for jobs in support roles. The chance to grow a career in an exciting and new industry has never been better, and as this infographic from shows, there is a wide range of roles for technology professionals, such as:

• Game tester/QA tester, whose role is to test for bugs and documents bug reports for QA. You can get in to this job with only six months experience in QA, and the salary for someone who has six plus years’ experience is around $74,000+ annually.
• Research moderator, who executes user-tests for all aspects of gameplay. You need a Bachelor’s degree for this role, and relevant working experience of 2+ years. Average salary is $32,000+
• Game designer/animator/motion graphics artist. They build and maintain game content to optimize the user experience. You need a Bachelor’s degree and good gaming knowledge, and your average salary is around $38,000+
• Motion capture clean-up artist. Their role is to work alongside the animation team and designers to clean animations and process data within games. You’ll need a degree in animation with relevant software and scripting experience. Salaries for this role start at around $45,000.
• As you can see from the above, the starting salaries are competitive, and you get a chance to join a vibrant, growing industry. As it’s a worldwide industry, Esports careers also give plenty of opportunity to travel internationally, and work with the latest technologies across the globe.