RageQuitFPS

Husband? What was all that one-in-a-million talk?

I have some questions about career development. My career so far:

• 2.5 years as a gameplay programmer for a game studio
• 5 years as a graphics programmer for a training simulator company with modest graphics needs (no PBR or anything cool like that)
• 3 years as an Android app programmer

Sometime during the graphics programming job (2011), I went back to school (physics major). Graduated in 2016 (part way through my current job).

I found the graphics job market in my area to be very small and stagnant. The Android app company offered me a 50% pay increase, and I took it. So basically, I sold out.

However, physics / math / graphics continues to be my passion and I'd like to break back in somehow.

Is there anything that a person who has been out of the field for >3 years do to rehabilitate their cred as a graphics programmer and land a cool job?

Is it the sort of field where only a few cities (e.g. LA, Austin, Seattle) have a bustling job market?

I sort of feel like, with Unity and Unreal, realtime graphics programming is essentially commoditized.

Also, I hear that quality-of-life tends to be terrible at places like Pixar and Disney. Is that true? Do you think it's possible for a company in this field to have a good work/life balance, or will scheduling concerns / artistic ambitions always override that?

What do you think about this news that SARS-CoV-2 uses CD4 to infect lymphocytes, and how could this impact immunity and in particular vaccines?