QA advice - Publisher or Developer for growth potential?

[AndrewG]

Hello and thank you in advance,

Here is a little background before I get to my questions:

For over a year and a half, I've been a temp QA employee of a large publisher. Due to the nature of the company, upward mobility has been very low. I've watched people who have been temp employees for 3-4 years finally get hired on as full-time, permanent employees of the company. However, through hard work I've managed to obtain lead positions and consideration for the next round of permanent hires (whenever that will be).

Now, I'm very interested and eager to move into production. I know that with time and additional hard work I can get there. However, all attempts of networking and gaining production experience in the company has been thwarted by seniority. People who have been at the organization for years, and have managing roles, are now being considered for low, "entry-level" production positions. Leaving the rest of us to stay in QA for several years before consideration.

With all that said, I've discovered that smaller studios may have better growth potential. I've just finished interviewing with one such studio, that creates flash based games. There is room for growth, but they don't have a production department. Not to say they won't have one in the future.

And this leads me to my questions: Should I continue to pursue a gig at a smaller studio in hopes to work closely with production and gain valuable experience? Or, should I continue to plug away at the large publishing company in hopes that the right opportunities will pop up?

Ideally, I'd like to move from QA to production quickly. I feel that my skills and talents are being underutilized in my current position.

[tsloper]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

1. Should I continue to pursue a gig at a smaller studio in hopes to work closely with production and gain valuable experience? Or, should I continue to plug away at the large publishing company in hopes that the right opportunities will pop up?
2. Ideally, I'd like to move from QA to production quickly.
3. I feel that my skills and talents are being underutilized in my current position.

1. I wrote an article on how to make a decision like this. It's at http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html* - article 70.
2. I'd like some instant gratification too.
3. Maybe so, but hopefully you are at least learning a lot of useful stuff.

*The web server has been having problems the last couple of days. If the site isn't available, try again later.