Get into Programming - Q&A with Luke Day (Client Engineer at Hutch Games)
- Quest Team
- May 10
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 1
Mobile game programming sits at the intersection of creativity and technical precision. From optimizing code for performance across devices to collaborating with artists and designers on game features, a programmer’s role is as dynamic as it is essential. In this Q&A, we spoke with Luke Day, Client Engineer at Hutch Games, about his journey into the games industry, his experiences working on franchises like Hungry Shark and Matchcreek Motors, and the realities of day-to-day life as a mobile game programmer. Whether you’re a student aiming for your first role or a hobbyist looking to go pro, Luke offers grounded advice on standing out, staying sharp, and growing your career in game development.
About Me
I studied BSc Computing for Games at Falmouth University, where I earned 1st class honours. A few months before my final year at university finished, I landed a job with Ubisoft London as a Junior Programmer. I was working on their very popular Hungry Shark mobile franchise. The studio has since shut down, and so I am now working for Hutch Games, as an Engineer on Matchcreek Motors. Both of the studios I have worked for were mobile game studios, using Unity for the game engines, and had hybrid working schemes. I greatly enjoy my job, and I definitely see programming as a hobby and a passion.
Getting into the industry
Before getting into the games industry, it's crucial to have a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding about your discipline. You must be able to show that you are experienced in, and have a passion for programming. A degree can greatly help with this, as it shows that you're dedicated to learning and deeply using your skills for a long time period, be it 3 or more years. Not only that, but degrees help develop your communication and interpersonal skills, which are highly sought-after in agile environments, such as game studios. That being said, it's not make or break if you don't attend university; you can still acquire the same programming knowledge through self-taught practices, and create some quality portfolio pieces to showcase to hiring managers and interviewers. To expand on this, displaying a range of projects (and thus a broad skillset) can be worth its weight in gold. However, if that isn't possible, then one strongly developed vertical slice of a project that you are passionate and can talk about would be ideal. It's not essential, but showing that you excel in a specific programming area, such as AI, rendering, or physics, can also be really beneficial.
Something that has always stuck with me is: "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". This is something that I think people trying to break into the industry could utilise. Before applying, make a solid cover letter, detailing concisely your experience in the field, your reasoning why you enjoy your discipline, and what drew you to the company. Before your interview, search for a list of common programming interview questions (both technical and theoretical); sharpen up on your technical programming skills and paradigms for the possibility of a programming test. If it's a triple A company that you're applying for, it's often quite easy to find what programming test they will use (or have used in the past).
QUEST TIP: Use sites such as Glassdoor for information about specific companies interview experiences & questions
Technical Skills & Tools
Object-oriented programming is a crucial concept to learn for game development, as it's how most game engines are built. Whilst there are other great approaches, such as data-oriented programming, these aren't as widely used or commonly-known.
Bug-fixing and debugging is one of the biggest technical challenges that I face day-to-day. It's something that every programmer will need to become familiar with, and it can help you future-proof and strengthen the quality of your code with experience. Other common technical challenges are things like optimisation and asset/memory management. For overcoming these sorts of hurdles, I would highly recommend following tutorials and guides online, as the tooling that game engines have in place can seem rather overwhelming at first.
One of the most underrated things, in my opinion, is the treasure trove of free and open source projects on GitHub. These are not only helpful for using in your own projects, but - if they're well-maintained - they can also be great to delve into and explore how things are done to learn from.
Industry Realities & Career Growth
It's quite funny looking back, but what surprised me when I came into the industry was how happy and friendly everyone was. I don't know why but I painted this picture in my mind that corporate jobs sucked the life out of everyone. Coming straight from university, one of the most fun and sociable times of my life, I was pleasantly surprised to find that game studios can also be a lot of fun. It especially helps when you get properly involved within your team and work closely with other disciplines. For example, most days I talk to the design team and get their feedback on a new feature, or speak to the artists to figure out how they want a game element to be visually set up.
Staying Relevant & Future-proofing Skills
Keeping up with the latest industry and programming trends can be valuable to stay informed and competitive within your discipline. The common ways that I've seen people stay up-to-date are reading blogs and magazines, such as this one you're reading right now. YouTube is one of my main areas of news; for programmers I would highly recommend checking out Fireship, GMTK, and Two Minute Papers.
If I was starting my career today, I would tell myself to speak my thoughts and opinions more often - and chase my ideas to make sure they haven't been forgotten. As a junior, I felt that it wasn't my place to speak up, and that I should mostly just listen and do. Everyone has a voice, and deserves to be heard.
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