I’m really not a big gamer since my youth, but im still fascinated by game engines and other dev technology. I’d like to work on unreal or any other large scale project really. The problem is I’m always so burnt out by my cloud automation job I don’t know where to begin. I’d essentially be going back to school.
Do the negative aspects of the industries culture bleed into core engine development?
The thing is, he likely could have been making 30-50% more if he was working at a FAANG type company in terms of where he'd likely slot in level wise.
The first bit will take time. Or you might have a "hook" which speeds up the traction part a bit (like Bevy being made with Rust, I guess).
Otherwise your best chance is creating a "game maker". A framework with editor that allows people to make simple to medium complexity games easily but won't require high performance. There are a lot of low skilled gamedevs that would love it.
The decent money could come from services you offer around the engine.
By contrast, Valve (Steam/Source Engine) is privately owned and always seemed like a great place to work? They're "always hiring", they say: https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/jobs?job_id=51
If the “game engine” is a military sim system.