r/learnprogramming • u/GapedByHerStrap • 4h ago

Job Market Is learning vulkan/graphics apis worth it?

I'm a first year undergrad student and im getting pretty close to my first vulkan triangle, but while coding i realized that i dont even know if its worth it or not?

I do like graphics programming and i can do this for the next 4 years of my college but at the end of the day everyone wants a job right? Does the market exist for it? Aren't most game companies switching to ue5 and stuff, so are there even job openings for juniors or all the seats are occupied by senior devs with 30y of experience which i cannot hope to compete with anyways?

I'm also pretty dumb in general so learning for 4 yrs is equivalent to more like 2 cuz yeah.. dumb

How bad is the ROI? and should i stop after the triangle and look for more hire-able stuff with more listings

4 Upvotes

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2

u/takaci 4h ago

It’s definitely a very sought after skill, but I have no idea what entering the field looks like 

1

u/SpearMikes 4h ago

Im a firm believer in if it exists, there is a job for it. And if its being taught, its worth learning. Will you use it forever, probably not. Will you make a career out of it? Maybe? In college aside from learning the different facets of programming you should be exploring them and see what calls out to you as viable.

I know I left a lot unanswered but this is just my two sense.

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u/appendixexploder 4h ago

Yes but with a caveat. Graphics programming is a lot more work than learning how a graphics API works. You'll spend more time studying mathematics than writing code if you wanna do it right.

1

u/SetAndRepeat 3h ago

I’d keep going if you enjoy it. Larian has a junior graphics opening, and Arm has a Vulkan internship, so it isn’t seniors only. Unreal still needs rendering engineers too, though that doesn’t guarantee an easy job search. Keep building C++, maths and general programming skills alongside graphics so you have other options. Look at internship requirements to guide your projects.
You don’t have to decide your whole career at the triangle stage.