I’m now a Technical Level Designer with certified C++ skills

I’ve worked in the industry as a Technical Level Designer for 14 years and in Unreal Engine specifically for almost 8 years. During this time I've dabbled in various scripting languages (Python, MEL, C#) and visual scripting interfaces, but I've always wanted to dig deeper.

Well, I've recently completed the fantastic Professional Game Development in C++ and Unreal Engine course from Tom Looman

Professionally, I’m used to debugging Blueprints in Unreal. Sometimes though, that can only take you so far. There are also times when a designer might need something simple like a variable exposing or an event making. I’ve been lucky in the last few jobs that I’ve had where the code departments have provided me with access to Visual Studio or Rider so that I’m able do simple tasks like this. In my level designer experience, being able to put in a Jira request or bug that shows that you’ve attempted to debug as far as possible and what your findings are, is always appreciated and gets you some coder brownie points.

While poking around in C++, it became less scary and I thought about doing a course. The Tom Looman course came highly recommended and I decided to take the plunge. It took me a while to get through during my free time, but it was an amazing course and now I'm looking forward to putting those skills to use!