Today i am interviewing Isaac from from Shotton, in North Wales, (a country to the West of England). Shotton is a small town with around 9,000 residents, and used to be known for its steel factory. Now people know Shotton because of its 900-year-old Ewloe castle. Isaac is a backend developer at TribePlay, working on TribePlay‘s new project, Cube Galaxy. He also helped the company do some research on HTML5. Learning new technology and tapping the talent are part of his daily life.

Isaac, why did you come to Chengdu?

I came first to Sichuan in 2007. Many UK high school graduates take a gap year, where they work or travel before starting university. I used this gap year to teach English in Deyang, though most weekends me and my friends would go to Chengdu to hang out. I experienced Chinese culture and Chengdu’s fun and relaxing lifestyle. When TribePlay offered me an internship here, I decided to come back.

How do you experience work in TribePlay, is it different from previous companies?

TribePlay is the 9th job on my working list. If you asked a Chinese university student, you can hardly get a list as follow.

I worked as:

1st job: Clothes shop assistant, TK Maxx
2nd job: Elementary school, Supervisor (looking after the kids before their parents came to collect them)
3rd job: Teaching English in China
4th job: Cleaner at a high school
5th job:Selling credit card insurance at a call center
6th job: Agency worker (sent to factories to clean or work on the line)
7th job: Bin man
8th job: English teacher for Italian students in the UK
9th job: Backend programmer in TribePlay, Chengdu, China

Though there were only 3 months in TribePlay, this is the first job that made me feel excited to come to office every day. I think working as a programmer was very different from my previous working experience. You are not just doing what the manager tells you to do. You have more responsibility and freedom.

Isaac

Gregor’s efficiency and hardworking gave me a deep impression. Every time when he came to my direction, I closed all non-work-related windows.
Lukasz gave me lots of advice about life and relationships.

What do you like to do at your spare time?

If I’m not tired, I’d like go out and party with friends. If I’m tired, I’d prefer reading the science ficton novels.

What do you want to do in 5 years?

I want to live in China, and have my own IT Company.

Do you like traveling and where do you mostly want to go?

I love traveling. Outside of Europe and China, I’ve been to India and the Philippines and will visit Malaysia in 2 weeks. Where would I most like to go? Space…

Could you tell me of one your achievement as a programmer?

In 2009, I decided to teach myself web programming at my first year of university. After that, I made a small online game by myself which is my most popular project to date. This game had 600 players and earned me 200 GBP.

Have you ever felt regret for anything?

I felt regret every time I left China.

Thank you Isaac for your time! Also everyone check out his homepage. If you interested in the other employees join us again in our blog with another interview from time to time. TribePlay is also always looking for new talents and we offer internships in every field of game development. Check out our Chengdu Job Opportunities or contact me directly jenny -at- tribeplay -dot- com!