Notes

Wall of text incoming

Basically just looking for some advice here.

When Ben first asked me about coming to work he said I'll be able to get 80k starting, Jake and Rian, and the other incoming senior programmers were on 120k as they had understandably come straight from a long stint at a big games company and they would only be able to bring me on board as an intermediate. Nevertheless I was over the moon to get on such an exciting project so I jumped at the chance.

When Stephen got in contact after the interview he said they were prepared to offer me 60k, not exactly in the strongest position to negotiate and wanting to make the best impression I could (complete wrong move I know now) I asked if I could at least get 65k and then in 3 months if I have shown what I could do then look at revisiting that starting figure, which was accepted. So I start, the only artist working with my peers at basically double my salary but eager to prove myself. During my stint in the apartment while all the other interviews were going on, I think it was Mini's interview where they were discussing salary and Dean had said that he thought it was immoral to offer someone less than 70k while working in Auckland (imagine how I feel sitting there working away at 5k under after being offered 10k under) I ask Dean about the statement later candidly and he assured me that once things had settled down and they had established proper brackets I would be rejigged and all would be well.

2 office moves and about 5 months later I had my chat with Stephen that they were extremely happy with what I have done for the project so far and my work ethic and knowledge have been noted and they are willing to give me 75k, the upper bracket for intermediate (still 5k under that 80k, but an increase nonetheless) and was made very clear that this isn't a raise, but my actual starting rate and performance reviews would still be taken into account. I had that first performance review a little after that and my only suggested improvements was that I could look at specializing if I wanted to on the art side of things. By this stage I had; laid the foundations on the art front for most of the core systems in the game and a lot of my time was spent going down to the art department to assist with various workflow and implementation problems or just straight up teaching and making sure things were how we wanted them done. I agreed that I could specialize, but then I lose the wide breadth of knowledge I have within the project being involved in so many of the moving parts so I would prefer to keep going in those areas as I really find my groove solving problems etc. My personal improvements from that feedback was that I thought I could perhaps be more proactive in passing off things which I didn't need to add to my clip.

A couple months after that I asked for a meeting with Ben where I basically just asked what more I needed to do to qualify for a senior position as I felt I was more than ticking the boxes required, not about the pay bracket increase but just about having some weight behind decisions and words. As well I felt like I was really playing somewhat of a curatorial role throughout the project that would fit somewhat tangential to the art department as a 'foundational artist' of sorts. I said that my wife and I are wanting to start a family and I just want to try and get any kind of timeline / indication as to when a senior bump up would happen / if I wasn't hitting any of the marks then what I could do to ensure I put myself in the best position possible. I was told that my name was on the top of the list for any sort of internal bump up as they are really appreciative of all that I bring and do around the project and that we are just waiting to find out what is going on with publishers before making any of those moves, but I am front and center when it comes to it.

Getting in to early this year, still no word from the previous meeting and being forgotten about in the next round of reviews I had been asked if I want to also work with the design team while so much focus is now on the design aspects of the game. I of course jumped at the chance as it is so in line with a lot of the work I had already done for the project (more focused on the why and how). The opportunity arose to buy our neighbors house and subsequently own the entirety of our cross lease section of land, setting us up amazingly for the future. I again requested a meeting and said that the only obstacle I faced was that my salary was just under what I needed to secure the loan, and as previously mentioned I felt I have already been performing that of a senior position for most of my time here and requested that if I could even just get the raise on paper (something along the lines of after x date I would be on x salary) and asked if I could get to 100k, that would be absolutely everything we needed. I was told that there would be no way to make that happen and there was an absolute hard freeze on any of those kinds of moves at this time in the project but as soon as they could make anything like that happen, I would be top of the list. We subsequently lost out on that opportunity but decided instead to sell our house.

About 2 months ago we started on the house hunting journey, and again I requested a meeting to ask if there was any news regarding the bump up as it would again make the loan process a lot less stress free and help set us up easier. There was a lot of talk in meetings about the money that had just come in from tencent and Ben said that he would see if he could work my raise into the team spend and get it actioned. Again, still no word of any movement.

Today I see that Chazz has been given a senior position, absolutely in no way saying he shouldn't, that team absolutely kills every part about what they do. But from my side, having put so much work into all that I do, taking on the entire talent system, designing and implementing the whole tree workflow and tool and being the point of contact across so many systems and leads and still getting passed over really is a massive kicker to both motivation and self worth within the project.

So again, just looking for some advice on what I can do