Picture this: It’s your first day of school, and you are excited about the semester ahead. You quietly find your seat before class begins. As you sit down and unpack your things, you begin to look around. Suddenly, you feel a sinking feeling in your chest. None of your classmates look like you.
This is the reality for many underrepresented individuals pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM). The experience can be isolating and often discouraging.
At EA Orlando, we are passionate about changing that narrative. Through various K-12 and higher education STEAM initiatives in Central Florida, we strive to build talent pipelines of the future and help underrepresented talent become successful professionals within the interactive entertainment and video game space, as well as the broader fields of art and technology.
Trevor Pierre, an online software engineer at EA, and his story is a testament to how important these initiatives are and the positive impact they have on students.
After first connecting with us through our summer STEAM program, Trevor later returned to EA for an internship in 2021 and a contract role in 2022 before beginning his full-time role after graduating from the University of Central Florida’s Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA).
We sat down with Trevor to learn more about his journey to becoming an EA SPORTS™ online software engineer, including his memorable experience at our summer program, the mentors who supported him along the way, and how EA’s culture has aided his personal and professional growth.
I’m an online software engineer, but right now, I work on a team that develops features for the modes that will be in our upcoming College Football game. It’s a lot of programming, but also a lot of meetings with different people from different domains within my team specifically, as well. I end up working with designers, tech leads and even some of the user interface engineers so they have what they need to make sure we can get our features complete.
I attended in 2018 when I was a high school student at the Crooms Academy. When I was there, they had a connection with EA, and throughout the year, EA professionals would tour the campus and help get us interested in tech fields. I remember when they announced the summer program over the intercom one day, and I thought, “Oh, that sounds really cool!” My guidance counselor gave me a pamphlet with all the information, I filled it out and ended up getting in.
Being accepted to the program felt unreal. As a student, you never really expect that you’re going to get to spend not just a day, but an entire week at a game studio. I think the first thing I did was actually jump up and down like 50 times. I was just so excited! I legitimately couldn’t believe it.
The whole week was really informative. Obviously, there was a focus on programming and software engineering, but I also liked that we saw all the different types of domains in game design. I thought that it was really, really cool that we didn’t focus on just one thing. Before I went to the program and before I even went to grad school, I didn't realize how important different jobs and responsibilities were to the actual game development process such as tech art.
The game my team made was a Donkey Kong clone. It was really cool to be able to work with other students on this one project. We pretty much made a whole little prototype from start to finish!
Definitely do it. It can have a major positive impact on your career. If EA is already aware of you, that makes things a lot easier when looking for internships or job opportunities. And definitely keep in contact with your mentor over time. In my personal opinion, that’s been one of the most helpful things I’ve done.
I met Alanna Berklund at the camp, and she’s been one of the most supportive people in my journey. Throughout my career, she’s constantly told me, “If you’ve got this, you can do anything.” She was really, really supportive of me during my undergrad, as well. She was always telling me to be more confident in myself and to never stop pushing myself to try new things. She’s always been my biggest advocate.
I’ve always known I wanted to work with computers because my grandfather got his degree in computer science. He’s one of my biggest heroes, so I wanted to follow in his footsteps in that way. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to go into game development and received my bachelor’s degree in information systems technology from Seminole State College. Shortly after, I applied to start my master’s degree at UCF/Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA).
The whole experience was really amazing. I got to work with a bunch of different people from all over the world, which is very similar to how EA works. For my capstone project at FIEA, I had to develop a game with other students from other divisions. I was the programming lead, which was difficult since we had the smallest team overall. We still managed to complete what I consider to be a good project and a really good game. It was very stressful work, but it taught me the proper time management and communication skills I use every day while working at EA.
EA has been good about work-life balance. They really emphasize not crunching on projects and respecting your personal time. It’s a major positive in my personal life.
I have not met a single rude person here. Everyone has been absolutely amazing, kind, understanding and just overall incredibly pleasant to work with. I think EA’s positive, inclusive and accepting environment is something more people should know about as they look for opportunities.
My favorite part of the job is helping and teaching others, especially newer team members. A big reason for that is because of the culture that we have; it just reinforces us to help each other and do our best.
This interview has been modified for length.
If you’d like to learn more about internships and careers at EA, check out our Early Careers page.