Recently, I had an interview with a game studio that caught me entirely off guard.
As someone who's worked across the full spectrum of Technical Art — from rigging and tools to pipelines and procedural systems — I've worn many hats over the years. I've built systems, mentored teams, and architected pipelines across multiple DCCs. But despite my deep love for shader work, I haven't had the luxury of spending focused time on them lately. When you operate across the whole tech art landscape, your attention naturally gets pulled in every direction.
So when this interview suddenly threw a shader coding test at me, I was excited… until I realized I had 2 hours to write a functioning shader that used a custom, optimized pseudo-random number generator with just three inputs. Pixel shaders don't like random numbers, I guess
I gave it my best shot. But I didn't finish in time, and I didn't get the job.
That part stung a little — not just because I didn't land the role but knew I could solve it.
I needed a little more time to shake off the rust and get my bearings in that specific mental space, so I did a little research.
So, after the interview, I did just that. I sat down, researched a clean solution, and implemented the complete shader from start to finish. The test that stumped me in the pressure cooker of an interview? I got it working — and I'm proud of it.
I decided to make a video sharing that experience — both the sting of the "fail" and the satisfaction of finishing something on my terms.
In the video, I break down:
The details of the test and why it was tough
My approach during the interview
What I learned in hindsight
A walk-through of my final working solution
This experience was a humbling reminder of something I think many generalists, tech artists, and multidisciplinary folks face: depth comes at the cost of breadth—and vice versa. We can't be world-class in every area at once, but we can keep showing up, learning, and improving.
If you've ever fumbled in an interview or felt like a fish out of water in a test — you're not alone. Hopefully, this video will help make that a little more okay.
Thanks for reading,
– The Pipeline Guy
