game, game. repeat.

Intro To Jose Martin

Tue 02 December 2003 #IWantToWorkAtEA.com

Apparently Bing asked Jose Martin to meet me after Bing and I met, and there he appeared! Jose is “Vice President Human Resources, WW Group Studios” which means I couldnt meet someone with a better view of Studios hiring plans.

We started our conversation with the standard questions about my interest in games, my favorites, etc. and then I started in with some questions of my own. I asked what makes the difference between a good producer and a great producer and he said there were three areas where a great producer excels:

  1. Creative: He has a clear vision of the game he wants to make, he is confident in himself and his vision, and he is effective at communicating his vision to everyone on the team in all their different roles.
  2. Management: He is an effective project and people manager with the skills that enable him to lead his team to realize his vision and consistently produce high quality products on-time and on-budget.
  3. Business and people: He can readily distinguish between good ideas that are commercially viable and those that are not. He has a good sense of the market. He is a good leader–he selects outstanding team members and he motivates and helps each of them to great personal achievements.

Jose encouraged me to attend the next GDC and I mentioned that I was already planning to go as a panelist with the IGDA’s QoL group. He thought that was an excellent idea and a great way of opening doors and meeting more people in the industry. Jose asked me some more about my background and then offered to answer more question to see how he could help. I asked him how I should be directing my efforts so that I can start and build a career at EA in production with the long term goal of exec producer in mind. He said that he felt I was doing the right things already and to keep doing what I’m doing–he’s going to see what he can do on his end but he thinks it really just a matter of timing and being patient as the hiring cycles come around. Then he offered me some excellent tactical ideas to help me in my interviews and help me to gain some experience while I’m still interviewing:

And that’s about the time my next surprise walked in: David De Martini. I said goodbye to Jose after a thoroughly informative meeting and I said hello to DeMar.