Just like the tech sector as a whole, there is a small number of women in gaming. Just 21% of women work in the games industry.
But female engagement in gaming is a huge opportunity for game developers and marketers, with 48% of gamers thought to now be women.
In this 40-minute session, hosted by SheCanCode, our speakers including:
- Maria Paskevich, Senior Data Scientist, King;
- Berivan Uçan, Associate System Engineer, Riot Games;
- Katja Ulbrich, Director of Digital Product, Product Management & UX, OpenBet;
- and Jacki Vause, Founder and CEO of Dimoso PR,
look into ways that the industry can encourage more women to work in the sector and reveal how women can get started on forging a career in gaming.
Q&A
I am a recent graduate with a MSc in Computer Science. I don’t have work experience in the industry but I have worked with game mechanics, computer graphics and animation during my studies and internship. Unfortunately, I have realised that in the region I am located in (Stockholm) there are not many junior/graduate positions for programmers. Do you have any recommendations of what steps to take to be a possible candidate for a position that requires a 2+ years professional experience?
I would recommend looking into internships and jr positions in game studios in the city. If you don’t see an open vacancy on their website, it is possible to send a “free application” to express your interest.
I know that King is hiring interns and junior candidates, you can get more information here: https://careers.king.com/students/
There are also studios like Rovio, Embark Studios, and Toca Boca in Stockholm.
OUR SPEAKERS:
MARIA PASKEVICH, SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST, KING
I’ve been working in the gaming industry for almost ten years now, in different data roles from Product Analytics to A/B Experimentation and Machine Learning. Data Science plays quite an important role in making games, as we help with improving game experiences through using data, but also help build games with help of the modern tools that AI enables. I work closely with game development teams to help them not just better understand our users, and how they play our games, but also build more personalized experiences for them that would make it even more fun.
Most of my experiences are in Mobile Gaming, where I started when the industry was in the beginning, to the present day, when there are around 3 billion people playing mobile games across the world.
BERIVAN UÇAN, ASSOCIATE SYSTEM ENGINEER, RIOT GAMES
Berivan graduated as an Industrial Engineer from Koc University, Turkey. Then, she worked in the FMCG sector as a Manufacturing and Process Engineer, Demand and Category Specialist. However, she always wanted to pursue a career in the gaming industry so she applied for the Games Design masters program in Dublin, Ireland. She graduated with First Class Honours and then joined Riot Games as a Systems Engineer Intern in the Cloud Infrastructure Engineering team. She is now continuing her role as an Associate Systems Engineer in the same team. Outside of work, she loves playing games (Currently, Wild Rift especially:)), reading, and cooking vegan food.
KATJA ULBRICH, DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL PRODUCT, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT & UX, OPENBET
Started out my career agency side in UX in Germany. Moved to the UK in 2010 and have been working in gambling b2c and b2b since 2011. Over the years career moved from sole UX into Product Management and am holding now holding a Product Director role, overseeing the digital side of OpenBet’s omnichannel product suite.
JACKI VAUSE, FOUNDER AND CEO OF DIMOSO PR
Jacki is the Founder and CEO of Dimoso PR, a London based integrated digital marketing and PR agency specialising in mobile games and technology.
Jacki launched Dimoso PR from London over 11 years ago. Now, it has a customer base from around the globe. Dimoso strives to work on the best and guarantees impactful results for all. From mobile games to tech startups, Dimoso has more recently moved into the metaverse with NFTs, blockchain games and Web 3.0.
Jacki is also extremely knowledgeable in all of these topics; she is a regular speaker at gaming and business conferences internationally. Jacki attends regular events, such as the Games Forum in London and Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki where she moderated panels, as well as speaking at Pocket Gamer Connects Toronto last year in 2022.
