Build a simple game and program the heck out of it. Be able to show what you can do.

Hit a show, talk to the programmers. Ask for pointers.

LTG : )

Getting an internship as an undergraduate in college years 1-3 would have been the best approach.

Most employers generally want staff with prior experience in or related to the job they're hiring for. When you're just starting out, take anything that's related to your field. Use that to build up some experience to help head toward your goal. There is a huge difference between programming in the classroom, and programming for a real production environment.

Building your own game or reprogramming an existing one might help set you apart.

Yup, it's a very small industry with essentially just 3-4 stable companies.

This is what Josh at AP did. And Ferret too, I think.

Or you could just move to Utah. Deeproot appears to be hiring EVERYBODY

Google it

Visual pinball is a good start.

Googling Pinball Framework will get you to it

https://missionpinball.org/

Not knowing you personally my advice would be be proactive and as anyone in egineering knows, it takes a long time to get the respect of more seasoned colleagues. As a seasoned colleague, I expect to hire new people who hit the ground running and do not need hand holding, at least not much. And ask pointed informed questions when you do need help. And take accountability for any mistakes you make, to prove that you understand what went wrong and that you've learned from it. As such, I am surprised you did not just google it and get straight to Mission Pinball.

98% of the questions you'll ever have! OP, go work in a different industry and tinker with pinball on the side. Go to numerous shows and network with the pinball industry types. Repeat, repeat, repeat for several years. Let everyone and their neighbor at the shows know you want to work in the industry.

Then they won't be hiring a random, college kid. They'll be hiring (insert your name here).

Personally I would message the coders or people in the industry on Facebook. They are very open and will likely answer back.

One way I think of new, younger employees, and many sell themselves this way, is they should have new ideas and ways to approach things with a fresh mindset. This hardly ever happens. If you can be that, e.g. Keith Elwin, look how successful he was out of the box, you'll show some real value and separate yourself. Most new employees are just in survival mode most of the time.

Cutting too deep probably, but if the OP stated, "Hey I contacted Tim Sexton at Stern and got some great advice from him as a new professional pinball programmer and a guy who transitioned from another industry. And hey, I have been tinkering with Mission Pinball Framework. And hey, I contacted -insert name- a guy who built his own pin or hey, I built my own pin. What other advice do you guys have?", I would have more confidence in the person. That's proactive self-initiative. Not an open-ended tell me what to do. My 2 cents and a lot of assumption sorry if any of it is not applicable. You are a second semester senior? As others have stated, you missed the internship window probably, so get a job and work on the pinball thing on the side. I would suggest contacting Tim Sexton directly, if he's welcoming to that.

Don't wait for people to tell you what to do. That's my #1 advice.

Most of the pro pinball programmers and pinball employees are active here. Who knows, maybe indirect phishing could work for you, or not.

Maybe you could get a job at a video game studio like Iron Galaxy or Netherrealm. They're Chicago based, so you can try to get into Stern while you gain a ton of experience developing and designing game software. Seems like there would be a lot of skill overlap, and all those studios are headed by ex Midway people that will know all the bigwigs at Stern from the Williams days.

Outside of what has already been said. Maybe talk to Jerry at P3. They are always looking at new games that would work on there platform and I know someone who's made one for him. Wouldn't be a bad way to cut your teeth and if it wound up being a good concept you could actually make some money off it too.

I don't think you'll get in the door w/o some experience elsewhere. You'll want experience more on the embedded system side of programming vs desktop/server programming (if that makes any sense of course ... I'm in my 40s now and work as an FPGA designer, so I am not up to date with specific software design styles/nomenclature ).

I think you'll find that your best bet is to buy a PROC and a cheaper WPC machine. Learn how to drive the game with the PROC. Stern will have a chunk of software that all games will use ... think of the PROC libraries as this "common" codebase. Your first project should be "make the flippers flip" . Once you're there, you can start to do more complex stuff. Doing this as a hobby with tangible results + skills acquired at your day job will make your resume stand out.

Maybe get a cheaper WPC machine like Party Zone ... that has a slick playfield but pretty lame rules (apologies to PZ fans). Once you have your brain wrapped around how the PROC works, write up a basic set of rules for a SIMPLE version of Party Zone (i.e. only concern yourself with a few switches and lamps ... don't think that your first rewrite has to have awesome light shows and the like ... just get your feet wet and grow from there). Keep growing the rewrite as you get more experience!

One other thing ... learn C. C is like hydrogen in embedded system design ... it's abundantly used all across industry all over the world. PROC has a python library available ... that'll make things easier for you to get up and running ... but knowing C will give you an advantage. I have no idea what Stern uses for programming, but if I had to bet, I'd put my money on C/C++ .

It is what it is. Ask pointed informed questions to show self-initiative and respect when help is needed. Not only show it but possess initiative. It's the best advice I can give you. Also defensiveness will sink a mighty ship. We all like well-adjusted co-workers, people who take ownership. Again no assumptions here being made just would recommend more expressed initiative and some people might not reply to non-thoughtful questions.

Some ideas you know is that these companies are getting more into connectivity with games being connected to the internet and their websites. I personally wouldn't get into game development due to the horror stories.

I contact George Gomez for example and was curious if they use just SolidWorks or AutoCAD. He said they use AutoCad for quick and dirty sketches and then move to SolidWorks. From there I would imagine they create a .CAM file and cut their first whitewood from there.

No though I would imagine they need people to handle the networking side of these games and their website presence. EVERYBODY wants to be a playfield designer or game rule coder. They have a bunch of young 20 somethings at Stern and I don't even think they played pinball that much before Stern or still do. You don't have to fit into a traditional thing and the way the economy is at right now I'm pretty sure they will train you. Reach out to George Gomez on Facebook. Seriously they will respond back.

Contact Stern and volunteer to complete the Wheel of Fortune code. If you are successful, you will have good experiences and be a viable programmer for any of the pinball companies.

He might reply but as I've stated you need to differentiate yourself if they are indeed looking for hires. George is a hiring manager. You will be competing with a lot of folks who have done the same I wouldn't want to waste a guy like Gomez's time unless you were truly qualified at this point. Someone like at Tim Sexton's level would be a better contact as he could help you to know how to get to that point (acceptable level of experience) before going all in competing with others for a job. Huge assumption there about his interest in helping you. The OP seems to be lacking in experience at this point, but again I do not know the OP.

Get on the Multimorphic forums and talk with developers working on the P3 platform. Their dev kit uses Unity.

If pursuing Stern, they may make you challenge Keith in many in house tourneys as part of the interview. Good luck on the journey!!

At the very least you might have to move to Chicago. Does anyone know if any Stern programmers work remotely?

I started out making my own pinball games using Future Pinball. I didn't know anything about coding but studied hard to learn everything I could. After a few years of making my own games and posting my work on YouTube, I was contacted and offered a job in the industry. I worked for 5 years before the company went tits up.

I now have 11 years experience and have coded about 80 pinball games, including complete code rewrites of many popular games like Addams Family, STTNG, Scared Stiff, Iron Man, Spider-Man where I've added new features and created more immersive gameplay.

I recently contacted Jersey Jack for work but they turned me down. It is very hard to get into the industry, even with a mountain of experience and knowledge, but if you have genuine creative talent, maybe with enough persistence and a bit of luck, a door will open.

Study, learn, and become even more knowledgeable in *PINBALL* itself. It sounds like you’re already a decent programmer and have the necessary skills on the tech side.

But (meaning no offense) programmers are a dime a dozen. What’s incredibly rare is a programmer who really, seriously and passionately knows, understands, and loves pinball. Or in more general terms: who thoroughly knows the company’s product who they are programming for, be it writing OS code for the next generation of smart phones, creating new technology to advance special effects or animation in the film industry, or programming the next great pinball machine. You need to demonstrate that you are not merely “a programmer” but you are one of those rare programmers who truly knows what you are programming - in this case: pinball.

Put another way: from the get-go you want to demonstrate that you will be a true part of the design team, not someone who would just sit around and code whatever rules, light shows, etc. that other people tell them to. It also turns out that you have no choice: unless the universe has changed, no pinball company worth its salt would ever hire a “just do what you’re told” programmer anyway.

I can think of no better example than Lyman Sheats who I had the pleasure to work with for several years back in the mid 1990’s and who remains a good friend to this day (although my opportunities to catch up with him have been typically few and far between nowadays because of my distance from Chicago.)

Lyman was first and foremost a very dedicated and professional programmer. Certainly when it comes to writing code, “good enough” is not something Lyman thinks or says. He’s a relentless debugger and code optimizer. But Lyman was all that in other positions before he brought his talents to the pinball industry. Had he never heard of pinball, he would have still been all that in whatever industry he wrote code for.

But as we all know, Lyman was and is a world-class pinball player too. He’s both incredibly knowledgeable about and very experienced using (playing) the products he programs from both his own company and its competitors. That knowledge and experience naturally feeds his creativity in designing new features and rules on the pins he programs as well as ensuring that familiar features are always rock-solid too.

I highly recommend following a similar path.

Maybe however he is young and can relocate and is looking for an internship to becoming a full member of the team. I know when I was in OP position as a welder I could clean the floor in certain types of welding but in other areas I had a lot to learn. However I was (and still am) paid poorly but it's all where you go, what the economy is like (I graduated college in '08), and what your profession is like. I only make a little bit more than $20 an hour for an Aerospace company for example however they have a history of recent layoffs with very poor upper leadership. I have also heard places like BAE Systems including my company are hiring people from the street and training them to do specialized work because the economy is that good. My company isn't a Lockheed Martin and I plan on moving to TX like OP wants to do with moving.

Family and friends and co-workers have called me crazy or doubt me (it's hot in TX and I'm like yeah but I hate the cold and do well in the heat) but you gotta believe in yourself. I have no family nor friends in TX it's like a life reset which I would imagine would happen with OP. Some though are supportive and that's who you know your friends are. Your more desirable than you think OP and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.