Hey fellow Technical Artists,
I have a Tools Development, Technical Artist interview coming up with Electronic Arts (EA). Any advice would be hugely appreciated.
Portfolio:
https://portfolio.curiawesity.org/
Sincerely,
Harrison Smith
The website is good.
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You may attract some pushback on some of those percentage “expertise” numbers – if you run into somebody else who thinks they are a 91% Python person, you might find them inclined to poke a little more aggressively at your credentials than if you had just listed yourself as “experienced”. You will need to carefully modulate the way you answer questions to come off as confident and informed, not cocky.
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The projects list would benefit from some more traditional art tools development. The reel stuff is good and shows both technical facility and the ability to learn – but a lot of hiring managers will be more comfortable hiring somebody who’s done more conventional TA work. That doesn’t mean you’d actually have a problem adapting to EA’s environment, clearly you are pretty capable of self-teaching. It does mean that there’s a good chance the real theme of the interview is “sure you’re smart but I’m a lazy hiring manager, convince me you’ll fit in without a lot of training and investment on my part”. A lot of people want to hire on proven past capability rather than future potential. You’ll need to (subtly but clearly) make it clear that you’ll be able to fit into whatever role they are imagining for you in addition to your obvious ability to self-teach and grow.
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If the interview is at Tiburon, make sure you know your Pep-8 standards and if you know C#, bone up on that as well.
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This is my general advice. Be humble. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know” instead of trying to beat around the bush. Take your time to think before responding if the question requires a moment. Be yourself. If you don’t know the answer, ask the interviewer to explain it to you.
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I don’t know EA at all, but I’ve recently interviewed about 25 people in North America and Europe and the one thing I am looking for is problem solving. If someone doesn’t know something specific, I don’t look at that as an issue. There are as many different Technical Artist Skillsets as there are Technical Artists. If they don’t know something and try to make up an answer, or they are unwilling to ask me questions to try to find out what I mean or what I am looking for, then I consider that a failure.
I guess that’s a long way of echoing the above advice. Be humble and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Interviewing is both stressful and a massive opportunity to learn. Tell them what you are sure of, but if you find yourself completely flummoxed by a question you might as well ask “How would you begin to solve this problem?” It’s entirely possible the interviewer is looking to see how someone collaborates in an area that they aren’t familiar with or how they approach learning as well. Worst case scenario, you get to hear the ideas of an experienced technical artist who has thought about this problem specifically.
Don’t assume that every question has a right answer or that every question is even designed to test your knowledge about a specific subject.
Of course, your mileage with EA may vary. Microsoft used to have a “stress interview” portion of the loop, which I find to be complete bullshit. The idea was to see how you handle adversity under pressure. It seems to me that the stress of interviewing alone kind of creates that environment by default.
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Thank you so much for the advice guys! I’ve made it through 2 of the interviews and the team is actually super awesome! They want me to move to the third and longest interview. About 3 hours and it will be more about problem-solving. I will definitely stay calm and humble. I am just super happy to be able to learn from super experienced Technical Artists.
Really thankful for this community as well! Thank you for taking the time to help out a newer Technical Artist! You guys are awesome!
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So, did you end up getting the gig?!
I’ve made it through and enjoyed all the interviews, and they seem to have enjoyed them too. 
They just gave me a technical assessment to make sure I can actually code, which I completed a couple days ago. I think I did well on it.
All I can say is that the team is really awesome, and because of the similarities I have with them, my suspicions that I’ve always been a technical artist have been confirmed! Now, I’m just waiting to hear back and hoping I’m the right fit. I just want to work with, and learn from great people!
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Yes, I love it!! I’m sure you’ll get it!!!
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I got it! 
Sorry for the late update. The process took a while. I just started last week and I love it so far!
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That’s awesome, Congrats!
Congratulations!!! 