Interesting insights into CD Projekt RED from Linkedin Profiles

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Interesting insights into CD Projekt RED from Linkedin Profiles

For unrelated reasons, I was going through LinkedIn when I stumbled upon a RED profile. Upon digging, a picture of a fast evolving, increasingly specialized and less horizontal studio emerged. The mandatory caveat here is that the following information is picked up from LinkedIn and the Careers page, so there's a chance it's either outdated or incomplete, or both, or simply misinterpreted data, which would be entirely on me. Nonetheless

1. A seemingly new layer of high level positions has been recently created. It appears to be comprised of directors who probably oversee the their department's work, but there's likely another new category, that of Principal, though it's not clear to me how the nomenclature reflects hierarchy, notably how it relates to the position of Lead. My estimation is the ladder goes upward from Intern, Junior, [regular dev], Senior, Lead, Principal and finally Director.


These new top level positions include:

On the technical front, which seems to be getting a good measure of agape love:

1. Principal Programmer (July 2015)
Tomek Wojcik, working on Cyberpunk 2077.
Given that the RED Engine has its own dedicated team, presumably led by Engine TD and Lead Engine Programmer, Balázs Török, perhaps this refers to programmers outside that team.

2. Engine Technical Director (July 2015)
Tomasz Jonarski, who worked as a Senior Engine Programmer on TW3, and is currently working on Cyberpunk 2077

3. Technical Art director (September 2014)
Krzysztof Krzysci

On the Art front -

4. Facial Animation Technical Director (October 2015)
Mateusz Popławski, formerly Platige Image.
Interesting that they would place such an emphasis on this particular aspect, on which TW3 already excelled. Given Platige Image's pedigree, even better facial animations, that's what's to be expected for Cyberpunk 2077. The same goes for Particles, for which a new system will be in place by the time that game launches. The respective programmer is currently being sought, as is a specialist for Camera work. I'm sure progress in that controversial department will be evident in Cyberpunk 2077.

5. Animation pipeline Technical Director (April 2015)
Michał Krupa, formerly Platige Image

6. Principal Concept artist (January 2015)
Bartłomiej Gaweł. Note the role of Lead concept artist is listed elsewhere, so the two positions co-exist.

7. Character Art Director (September 2015)
Pawel Mielniczu , who was a lead character artist and lead character concept artist on TW3.

8. Art Director (open position) [Careers]
The job description for this top level position reads " Create the artistic vision for games in development at CD Projekt Red studio". What's interesting is that Cyberpunk 2077 already has its Art Director, Marian Chomiak, who's been working in that general capacity since January 2012. Speculation might therefore involve future instalments of the Witcher franchise. Indeed, Cyberpunk seems to already have its slew of top ranking positions allocated. There's Game director, Mateusz Kanik, from March 2012 onward, the aforementioned Art Director, but also Creative Director, Sebastian Stępień, who's been working as such since February 2013 after famed work on TW2. What exactly are the responsibilities of a Creative Director and how they relate to those of a Game and Art directors, I do not know. As for the role of Executive Producer. it has been filled since July 2015 by Jędrzej Mróz, before just a Lead Producer on that same game. A fifth high level recruitment is currently under way, that of

9. Urban Planner (Open Position) [Careers]
Though the offer doesn't explicitly mention Cyberpunk 2077, it references "Providing creative input and specific means to create a believable and authentic feeling of the City of the future."

On the other extreme, a seemingly highly specialised low level art position has also been fashioned for Cyberpunk 2077

10. 3D Hard Surface Artist (July 2015)
Csaba Szilagyi


2. The Story department seems to have received a couple of top level positions


11. Story Director (July 2015)
Marcin Blacha, who worked as a Lead Writer on TW3.

12. Principal Narrative Designer (September 2015)
Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, the Lead Quest Designer on TW3​

3. CD Projekt Red now has its own Research and Development department! A dream job, comparable to the analogous position at The Fat Duck.


13. R&D Manager (December 2015)
Stan Just, formerly a producer on TW3.​

4. Developers moving on and switching companies and studios is nothing unusual at this level, but one cannot help lamenting the departure of these two talented and articulate designers:


1. Jonas Mattsson, the Swedish Senior Environment Artist and TW3 dev regular interviewee, is now a senior Level Artist at Dice.

2. Peter Gelencser, though still listed on LinkedIn as working at CD Projekt RED as a Senior Level designer, is now a Level Designer at Ubisoft Toronto, as indicated on his Twitter.​
 
At least in American usage (I can't speak for Polish), the ranking goes Lead-Principal-Director. All three are supervisory positions, but only a Director or Vice-President or Chief something-or-other will have budget authority. Leads and Principals lead the team they're given. They differ mainly in the degree of responsibility they take on. Principals likely will report to a Director or VP and have significant responsibility to propose or make major design decisions.
 
I knew Gelencser had left but Mattson is a big loss as he also worked on TW2. What I was hoping to see is Bartek Gawel on Cyberpunk. That guy is worth his weight in gold when it comes to character design. I 'd assume his work on The Witcher series is finally wrapping up.
 
3. CD Projekt Red now has its own Research and Development department! A dream job, comparable to the analogous position at The Fat Duck.

That's good. It's probably for GOG Galaxy. It's a pity they don't have any R&D related to graphics (for example they could work with Khronos). Other gaming companies have such developers.
 
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Interesting information, thanks for sharing.
Sad to hear Péter and Jonas had left. Best luck to them, and many thanks for their amazing work on TW3!

Is Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz involved in CP 2077? He's a genius as well.
 
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@Agent Bleu: Is anyone there with Linux / OpenGL development position?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

---------- Post merged on 12-12-2015 at 10:22 AM ----------

Also:

- Besides Animation Pipeline Technical Director and Facial Animation Technical Director, there's also Animation Technical Director (August 2015), Piotr Tomsiński.

- Departments have their own specialised QA analysts. There's Art QA Analyst, Audio QA Analyst and even Engine QA Lead (QA Technical Lead).

- @Gilrond-i-Virdan , if I remember correctly, there was a generic mention of OpenGL in one profile. I can't seem to track it down, but I would not read much into it anyway. You can do a simple Google search including the terms "Cd Projekt RED" and "LinkedIn" and the public portion of relevant profiles will show up.

- A few interesting positions:

- Environmental specialist, Lead Living Word Designer (Living World Team), Senior Recruiter.



---------- Updated at 10:48 AM ----------

Is Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz involved in CP 2077? He's a genius as well.

His profile lists him as Lead Writer/ Entertainment Consultant and Contractor. However the Hearts of Stone Developer video has him as the English Adaptation Director. So I'd expect him to indeed lead the English adaption on Cyberpunk 2077.
 
Hm. They have a few OpenGL experts:

Kamil Nowakowski. He knows Linux programming and joined CDPR in 2014(!).
Maciej Sawitus. His profile doesn't mention Linux.

And Tomasz Jonarski is a Vulkan fan (no Linux listed either).

If anything, Kamil Nowakowski sounds like a potential developer who works on the Linux version of REDengine :)
 
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