What Jobs are in Demand for Virtual Reality Companies?

Everything evolves. Artists will try very new and interesting things with any new form of expression. I recall hearing about a piece of music in which the piano player comes out, opens the keyboard cover then closes it and rests. He repeats that for a number of movements. There was a movie filmed in real time of someone sleeping for 8 hours. I've heard of pieces of art that are entirely white canvas. You may laugh at some of these but when considered closely or understood from the artist's point of view – like there is no real silence that the audience is part of the music or the sounds, even of your own heart and breath, contribute to everything you do – it becomes very interesting. There are no examples of silence.

Television and film have gone through a very interesting evolution that includes both technology and creative expression. We have seen music performances recorded, which moved to live performances including comedy. The technology of recording and playing back on television led to more complicated forms of expression. Special effects have a tremendous impact on modern movies. Undoubtedly, the unimaginable in movies like the effects we saw in computer-generated illusions (e.g., the visual effects in The Lord of the Rings series) were once considered impossible. Virtual Reality (VR) will follow a similar path, driving the evolution of human expression and media.

Today, with committed efforts from major hardware manufacturers and Facebook, high-quality virtual reality hardware and software are becoming accessible to the average person. The question is, what will people do with this technology? In my belief, some extremely useful and transformative forms of expression will emerge from this new technology. Filmmakers like Gabo Arora and Chris Milk have already created something amazing with the UN's first Oculus 3D film that puts viewers inside a Syrian refugee camp. This form of expression has the potential to help solve the world's problems, just as they remind us that everyone around us is still a real person and a solution is possible.

Current and Future Demand for Jobs in Virtual Reality

The highest demand for workers exceeds our current imagining. Nobody really knows what role VR technology will play in our future. People will start by sharing their own experiences in 3D filmed movies. You will be able to join someone on the street in a concert or even look around their bedroom while they sleep. This technology will evolve to stitch together multiple sources of information, allowing you to move around in 3D spaces for both video games and real-life street navigation. There is lots of potential for crime prevention through crowdsourced data or, in a darker future, Orwellian surveillance creating more information for bad actors to commit crimes.

Jobs available in the virtual reality industry can be broadly categorized as follows:

Producers and Directors: Managing content creation from live-action to VR-specific content. Artistic Designers: Designing and creating visually appealing content and environments. Production Managers: Overseeing the production process and ensuring smooth execution. Camera and Sound Personnel: Capturing footage and audio in both real-world and virtual settings. Props Design and Management: Creating real-world and virtual props for various scenarios. Software Engineers and Developers: Working on existing technologies to support VR software development. Hardware Engineers and Sensor Designers: Developing the high-speed components needed for head-movement tracking and room-scale positioning. Networking Specialists: Ensuring robust and secure network connections for VR experiences. Security Experts: Protecting VR systems from potential cyber threats and keeping user data secure.

The Future of Virtual Reality Jobs

What is being developed today in hardware sensors and controllers is crucial for the user experience, keeping up with very high frame rates as people move their heads. Users will need to attach to sensors in a room to maintain position, use controllers they cannot see (due to the head cover), and 3D cameras for live recording. We see these systems today as stop-and-pan images at sporting events or some setups that create a 3D avatar of users. The hardware also includes 360-degree cameras to capture video, creating immersive experiences for users.

Software jobs today are the same as those in any 3D industry. Security, networking, 3D production, animation, design, and flow, among others. As artists push the envelope and want to create something within a VR environment that doesn't exist today, these roles will evolve. Consider cartoons from the 1960s, where such creativity was unimaginable. The transformative work done by today's artists and creators will drive the development of new career paths and job titles in the future. As users get hands-on with hardware, they will start to see the potential for themselves, thereby expanding the scope of VR jobs and pushing the industry forward.

It is my belief that the jobs of the future are already here – we just need to look at today's technologies and consider how they are evolving. David A. Smith, founder of Wearality, famously said, "The future will be completely changed someday soon by a 12-year-old." This sentiment underscores how the youth will continue to innovate and shape this new medium, driving the demand for diverse and creative roles across the virtual reality industry.