Jon Cable (JonnyOThan)

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JonnyOThan is a  Bungie Employee. His account was created on the 1st of December 2006. JonnyOThan's current title is 'Bungie Employee' and he has posted over 300 times. He works as a "Sandbox Engineer Extraordinaire" at Bungie. His official full-time start date at Bungie was 6/11/07, but he had interned for about 7 months in the summer and fall of 2006.

## History

Taken from Jon's 'Breaking In' article:

**Q. Who are you and what do you do?**

A. I’m Jon Cable, and I’m a Sandbox Engineer Extraordinaire here at Bungie. “Sandbox” means toys like weapons, vehicles, physics, secret military projects, et cetera. “Engineer” means I write code. I think you get the “Extraordinaire” part. I work closely with the designers like Tyson, Sage, Christian and Derek to take their ideas and make them actually function in the game. I also do occasional multiplayer work – especially when it concerns sandbox elements – since that was my main job for Halo 3.

**Q. What are some of the toys in your sandbox that you use for inspiration outside of work?**

A. Games of all kinds are my inspiration. For as long as I’ve been playing games (which is as long as I can remember), I’ve always been trying to “take them apart” and figure out how they work – how they did their effects, physics, AI, stuff like that.

My hobbies include making and playing games, working on my car (an RX-7) and playing with my dog.

**Q. Complete the following sentence as you would have at twelve years of age: When I grow up, I want to be a…**

A. I think at 12 I wanted to be a game developer. Before that I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I liked paper airplanes. A lot. Sometime in high school I wanted to be an architect – it wasn’t until my senior year that I really decided that game development was the one thing I would always love to do.

**Q. Did you get any guidance during your time in High School?**

A. I remember one test saying something about an electrician. I think the system was so old it didn’t know what a computer was. I tried to talk to authority figures in high school as little as possible.

**Q. Did that aversion to academic authority lift long enough for you to earn a college degree?**

A. Yep – a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.

**Q. And how did you end up first make contact with Bungie?**

A. I was interning at Microsoft in the summer of ’05. We had a weekly Halo night where we played on system link in the conference rooms on these big projectors. I met another intern there named François, who was working at Bungie in level design. I asked him to get me in touch with someone here, and a while later Chucky contacted me and we started the interview process. I still had two years of college left, so I got an internship for the next summer.

**Q. What did you bring along to the interview process proper?**

A. I brought my laptop with a couple games I had written. I didn’t get a chance to show them off until the very end. But mostly I just came prepared to meet whatever challenge was thrown at me.

**Q. Is there one moment in the interview that sticks out in your memory as being particularly challenging?**

A. I had a hard time finding the building. Most Microsoft buildings are easy to find – big signs and numbers out front. Not this one. Looking back on the actual questions, I think I could have done a lot better. But I was really excited about the challenge and really determined, and I think that showed.

**Q. In one sentence, describe what it’s like to work at Bungie.**

A. It’s like being Sisyphus, except the hill is infinitely high. “The struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart.” Thanks, Wikipedia.

**Q. Any advice for aspiring applicants looking to push boulders up an endless incline?**

A. It’s never too early to start game development as a hobby. Modding games like Halo PC, Counterstrike, Warcraft, et cetera is a great way to get a start in game design. If programming is your thing, go check out XNA. It’s got a great community for aspiring developers, and best of all it’s completely free!

## Links

Link to Bungie.net Profile.

Jon's 'Breaking In' article