VRChat Hires Community Member Who Created Popular Scripting Compiler -- UdonSharp Planned to Become Part of Official SDK

Above: Merlin's home office working for VRChat Inc. 

Great update to UdonSharp, the hugely popular user-made compiler that converts C# to VRChat's Udon scripting language: Recently, VRChat the company officially hired "Merlin", UdonSharp's creator, to work directly and full-time for the company, and implement his code into the official  development software.

"In the near future, yes it will probably be imported automatically with the SDK," as Merlin puts it to me. "I think it will depend on how much the SDK ends up needing to tie into UdonSharp to decide if it'll be included in the main Udon/SDK package at some point down the road rather than as an extra package that's installed automatically. But to the user it should essentially look the same with it being imported automatically with the SDK in versus it being part of the main SDK."

VRChat first hired Merlin to do contract work to support UdonSharp last year, a good thing to benefit the thousands of community creators who already rely on his compiler -- not to mention financially supporting Merlin himself, who was unemployed at the time.

“I was living off savings from my prior job and working towards breaking even on living costs for rent/food/etc with Patreon,” he says.

Merlin later saw a need to improve the Udon SDK on a broader level -- but only if he were working for the company full-time. So he applied, and joined the team:

“Overall it doesn't feel very different in my case," Merlin says about corporate life at VRChat Inc., "since I'd had relatively close interaction with VRChat as a community developer for a while beforehand and I knew a number of the people I am now working with from being friends with them in VRChat.”

Like the rest of the VRChat team, he only works remotely: “We often have team meetings in VRChat which is cool.”

Merlin’s advice for other VRChat content creators who might want to follow his path:

“If you think a position on the VRChat careers page fits your skill set, apply. VRChat is hiring pretty quickly at the moment; it's worth putting in an application even if you don't check all the boxes 100%. For a number of open positions, your VRChat worlds/avatars could be used as portfolio material. Many VRChat employees are community members who demonstrated their skills in part through content they made on the platform.”

Job listings here. Again this aspect of VRChat reminds me of Second Life’s early days just before the boom times, when Linden Lab avidly hired numerous staff from among its passionate user community.

Hat tip: Wise fox Adeon.

Comments

[Mem Jo]

Omgg can’t believe this!! Merlin has grown so much! Been here from day one! Keep it up

-Mem Jo

[TonyVT Skarredghost]

I think it was about time. Udonsharp is fundamental for all us VRChat content creators