I'm a music composition student also getting a minor-plus-some in computer science. I love writing music and making sound effects and want to write music for games. But, I also realize everyone and their mother wants to do that. With that in mind, and since I'm already equally in love with programming, I'm interested in looking at focusing some aspects of the computer science portion of my education towards audio implementation for games.

What I've done/am doing:

• Wrote "MusicManager" classes that are aware of musical timings and a small amount of automated mixing based on game events

• Reading Who is Fourier? as I work my way toward understanding Fourier analysis and implementing the FFT

• Learning FMOD Designer and using the designer API in a game (of course not taking a class specifically on this, I'm good for learning APIs on my own)

With that background, I've got a two-part question.

So aside from the things I list above, and the good ole fundamentals of computer science (data structures and algorithms, discrete math, OO/structured design), what are studios looking for in audio programmers?

Also, G.A.N.G. and AES lecturers speak as though audio programmers are the next hot thing in games, but do many studios even have or think to hire dedicated audio programmers?

I'm a music composition student also getting a minor-plus-some in computer science. I love writing music and making sound effects and want to write music for games. But, I also realize everyone and their mother wants to do that. With that in mind, and since I'm already equally in love with programming, I'm interested in looking at focusing some aspects of the computer science portion of my education towards audio implementation for games.

What I've done/am doing:

• Wrote "MusicManager" classes that are aware of musical timings and a small amount of automated mixing based on game events

• Reading Who is Fourier? as I work my way toward understanding Fourier analysis and implementing the FFT

• Learning FMOD Designer and using the designer API in a game (of course not taking a class specifically on this, I'm good for learning APIs on my own)

With that background, I've got a two-part question.

So aside from the things I list above, and the good ole fundamentals of computer science (data structures and algorithms, discrete math, OO/structured design), what are studios looking for in audio programmers?

Also, G.A.N.G. and Audio Engineering Society lecturers speak as though audio programmers are the next hot thing in games, but do many studios even have or think to hire dedicated audio programmers?