Engineering and Technology Book
| Open Access |
DOI: From Junior to Middle in 6 Months: A Personal Mentorship Methodology for Unity Using the "Strategic Experience Augmentation" Strategy
Yurii Sulyma , Lead Unity Developer. Cubic Games Kyiv, UkraineAbstract
This study presents and substantiates a comprehensive methodology for the accelerated training of Middle-level Unity developers. The methodology is founded on a synthesis of andragogical principles, a constructivist approach, and Project-Based Learning (PBL). Its central element is the "Strategic Experience Augmentation" strategy, which is aimed at overcoming the "experience gap" that constitutes a key barrier to employment for novice specialists. This paper provides a detailed six-month curriculum (roadmap), a mentorship support toolkit including formalized code review and interview simulations, and metrics for evaluating the program's effectiveness. The methodology is positioned as a solution to the structural talent deficit within the game development industry, ensuring the preparation of specialists capable of delivering production value (time-to-value) in the shortest possible timeframe.
Keywords
Personal Mentorship, Unity, Game Development, Strategic Experience Augmentation, Experience Gap, Andragogy, Project-Based Learning (PBL), Competency-Based Education, Time-to-Value, Middle Developer
References
Buijsman M. (2025). How did the global games market reach $182.7B in 2024—and what's next? Newzoo. URL: https://newzoo.com/resources/blog/global-games-market-update-q2-2025
Developer Profile. (2024). 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. URL: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/developer-profile
Gartner. (2024). Top Trends Impacting Your IT Talent Strategy for 2024 and Beyond. Gartner Webinars. URL: https://www.gartner.com/en/webinar/597065/1330189
Gartner. Skill Gaps | HR Insights | Gartner.com. URL: https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/insights/skills-gap
Deloitte. (2025). Closing the experience gap. Deloitte Insights. URL: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/human-capital-trends/2025/closing-the-experience-gap-through-talent-development.html
Knowles, M. S., Holton III, E. F., & Swanson, R. A. (2014). The adult learner: The definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Routledge.
IEEE Mentoring Program - Google Sites. URL: https://sites.google.com/ieee.org/ieee-collabratec-info-pages/mentoring-program
Trainer, E. H., Kalyanasundaram, A., & Herbsleb, J. D. (2017, May). E-mentoring for software engineering: a socio-technical perspective. In 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training Track (ICSE-SEET) (pp. 107-116). IEEE.
Ben-Ari, M. (2001). Constructivism in computer science education. Journal of computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 20(1), 45-73.
Smith, J. (2022). Constructivism in computer science education. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 (pp. 1171-1171).
Kenwright, B. (2016, November). Holistic game development curriculum. In Siggraph asia 2016 symposium on education (pp. 1-5).
Sato, Y., Hanaoka, H., Engström, H., & Kurabayashi, S. (2020, August). An education model for game development by a Swedish-Japanese industry-academia alliance. In 2020 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) (pp. 328-335). IEEE.
Karimi, A., Teimouri, H., Shahin, A., & Barzoki, A. S. (2019). Competency-based recruitment and managerial succession. Human Systems Management, 37(4), 411-423.
Tripathi, K., & Agrawal, M. (2014). Competency based management in organizational. Global Journal of Finance and management, 6(4), 349-356.
10/12 Competence-based approach as a basis for managing the process for professional training of students in college - "Paradigm of education". URL: https://edupar.ru/10-12-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9-%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B4-%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA-%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0/
Birmingham, W., & Adams, D. (2007). From 2 D To Consoles: A Three Semester Computer Game Development Curriculum. In 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition (pp. 12-767). URL: https://coed.asee.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2-From-2D-to-Consoles-A-Three-Semester-Computer-Game-Development-Curriculum.pdf
Advanced Certificate in Cloud Computing for Game Development - LSIB - UK. URL: https://qualifi.lsib.co.uk/2022/course-details.aspx?id=8919&CourseTitle=Advanced+Certificate+in+Cloud+Computing+for+Game+Development&Subject=&Award=
How To Start A Game Studio With Proven Tips & Resources - Assembla. URL: https://get.assembla.com/blog/how-to-start-a-game-studio/
Setting up a CI/CD build pipeline for Unity using GitHub Actions - Anchorpoint. URL: https://www.anchorpoint.app/blog/setting-up-a-ci-cd-build-pipeline-for-unity-using-github-actions
Setting up a CI/CD pipeline for Unity Part 1 - Medium. URL: https://medium.com/@RunningMattress/setting-up-a-ci-cd-pipeline-for-unity-part-1-344e74c4f35a
Gaming Industry Report 2025: Market Size & Trends - Udonis Blog. URL: https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/gaming-industry
Industry Perspectives on 2025 Mobile Gaming Trends - Unity. URL: https://unity.com/blog/2025-mobile-gaming-trends-industry-perspectives
2024 IT Priorities and Challenges: Insights from the Field | Gartner Peer Community. URL: https://www.gartner.com/peer-community/oneminuteinsights/omi-2024-it-priorities-challenges-insights-field-vf2
DevOps in E-Gaming: Case Studies - OpsWorks Co.. URL: https://www.opsworks.co/blog/devops-in-e-gaming-case-studies
Article Statistics
Copyright License
Copyright (c) 2025 Yurii Sulyma
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are disseminated under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY), which licenses unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is appropriately cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.