Career Options in AR and VR

Career options in Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality

In the past few decades, virtual reality (VR) has been extensively used in numerous areas including entertainment and gaming. We are currently not living in an era, where people shy to spend on entertainment. VR concepts currently are mostly applied to gaming fields, but in near future, VR is predicted to be actively used in all fields such as education, training, medical and rehabilitation, and even social life. Nowadays VR consists of taking control over your visual and hearing senses to create a whole new exciting virtual experience, but in the coming decades, VR is expected to use all your 5 senses to create an immersive virtual experience that would be impossible to differentiate from reality. VR has been used by Walmart to train its staff to deal with the Black Friday shopping festival. Some international medical universities are using VR to explain and train students for surgeries and this type of training has been found as very efficient. So basically, VR applications are booming right now and in a few years, the career opportunities related to VR would be exploding. 

There is a relentless number of job opportunities in this career path since the industry is predicted to boom in next coming years. Many new companies and some old giants are beginning to experiment with integrating virtual reality technology into their business structure, and they need professionals like you on board to make that happen. It all depends on your interests, passions, and what type of work you enjoy. 

These are some of the career options available in VR: 

1) Software engineer: VR software engineers are the ones who build a virtual world that can be interacted with by users, using skills that include 3D development and programming languages such as C# and C++. The primary duties of a VR software engineer include designing and developing VR applications and debugging the scripts for better usability of users. 

2) Technical 3D artist: Technical artists need to be experts in both creativity and technical fields. Usually, these two fields are not related and are at opposite poles, hence for becoming a technical 3D artist you will need a particular mindset to be equally talented in both fields. The role of a Technical 3D artist is to act as a supportive bridge for the creativity, programming, and engineer teams. 

3) Virtual reality sound effects specialist: VR sound effects specialist is an expert who creates original and immersive audios suitable for VR applications. VR does not only depend upon the visual component it also highly depends upon the audio component to make the experience delightful. 

4) Unity developer: A Unity developer is a software developer who is expert and experienced in unity platforms, they work as a vital part of the programming team and use program design plans to develop required games or applications. People who are well versed in unity 3D are the most wanted professionals in the VR industry. 

5) UX/UI designer: VR applications are completely useless without the user interface, hence UX/UI designers are highly required in the VR industry. Skill sets in storyboard creation, user flow prototype models, along excellent Unity 3D, Maya, and Photoshop skills are all essential requirements for a good UX/UI designer. 

6) Mixed reality artist: Mixed Reality Artist is a highly creative position, the role of MR artist is to create and design by using numerous digital technologies to remake and reshape the mortal’s communication with the computer. Mixed Reality Artists is right in the heart of the mixed reality domain, where they work to include and implement two and three-dimensional objects, scenes, and imagery in unique and interactive forms. They also concentrate on optimizing hardware and software usage by developing and implementing workflows for a smooth visual for virtual content 

7) Virtual reality content creator: The content Creator has the responsibility of writing blog posts about industry-related topics and promoting content on social media for the firm. To be a successful content creator you are expected to have a good command of language and should create some interesting and attention-worthy content for users on a frequent basis. 

8) VR maintenance and support: Equipment users have found out that unplanned production downtime is often due to factors not related to the machine’s age. The reality is that most equipment failures result from invasive predictive maintenance tasks, installation errors, and inappropriate repairs. Hence, manufacturing companies are using augmented reality and virtual reality concepts to reduce machine repair errors and improve their precision maintenance. VR Maintenance and Support staff must be capable of troubleshooting VR and AR systems. 

9) Product and project managers: Project and product managers lead product teams through the brainstorming, developing, and launching of new XR products for developers or consumers. Product and Project Managers also bring organizational thinking into their teams and develop structures for them to achieve their goals. Product and Project Managers must have experience in collaborating on projects with teams of designers, prototypes, product testers, and engineers. 

Some of the largest companies dealing with virtual reality are Oculus, Apple, HTC, Microsoft, Samsung, Unity, Google, Nvidia, and AMD. There are many start-up firms dealing with virtual reality and augmented reality. Now after the announcement of “Jio glass” the hype regarding virtual reality in the Indian software market is increasing at good rate. So basically, you have multiple career options in the virtual reality field and are at the moment less competitive when compared to the conventional IT industry. If you’re interested in the software side, you’ll need experience working with 3D modeling and design software, integrated development environments, and programming languages such as C# or C++. In addition, graphics programming and even game development practices are useful and experience in IT is always a bonus in the VR field. If you are interested in the hardware side, you are expected to build a headset or devices related to it, for this you are expected to have good knowledge in hardware engineering and modern electronics. Experience in data handling and cybersecurity would be very much appreciated as the streaming experiences and content delivered on a VR platform will be collecting and processing data, and it needs to remain secure and private. Mobile application and software development experiences in Android or iOS may be a good path to follow if augmented reality is a sector you want to pursue. A good artist who understands a bit about programming, or a good programmer who understands a bit about art, will be more employable than someone who is just okay at both.

Anandhu Suresh