Tag: Jobs

BE A MOLE! Linden Lab Is Seeking Avatar Clothing Creators, Riggers and Avatar Makers for Second Life

I’m currently swamped with work for my full-time paying job as a university librarian, but I wanted to take a quick moment to post that Linden Lab is hiring! Here’s the post:

We are seeking clothing creators, riggers and avatar makers (skin, hair, makeup, accessories)!

Are you a talented clothing or avatar creator looking for work? Can you put your hand into creating standard and “way out there” outfits? Are you a master of rigging? Do you have a great PC and internet connection that you can run on at a high draw distance, decent FPS and will handle all that various content creation tools?

Essential Requirements:

  • Clothing Creators adept at using Substance 3D Painter, and experience with Marvelous Designer and Adobe Photoshop 
  • Riggers and Avatar makers adept at using Blender/Maya/ZBrush/Cinema 4D and rigging for Dev Kits and the Second Life Starter Avatars 
  • Skills in making textures and materials. 
  • Mesh optimization and creating strong LOD.
  • Own a laptop, desktop or Mac, capable of running Second Life at High and Ultra settings with a minimum draw distance of 256.
  • Good internet connection with good FPS.
  • All of your work must be your own and original.
  • Be reliable, dedicated and work well as part of a team with lots of different personalities.

Bonus Experience/Skills:

  • Avastar, Avatar/Animesh rigging. Experience making decor and accessories.
  • Creating animations.
  • Experience working with quadruped Avatars/Animesh.


If you think you fit the bill and want to join the LDPW, with a dynamic team of wonderful creators, working on exciting projects, then please email derrick@lindenlab.com and provide us with a portfolio and examples of your work. 

Here are some questions and answers from the Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) list, taken from the Linden Department of Public Works (LDPW) wiki:

Is this a volunteer position?
The moles are paid an hourly rate.

How do I apply?
Send a resume to Derrick Linden at derrick@lindenlab.com – please include your areas of expertise and any links, screenshots or other information you would like to have considered so we can see recent examples of your work.

Do the contractors keep the rights to their content?
In order to maintain the rights to reproduce the content and to make some of it available via the Library, Linden Lab is purchasing full rights to content created by the mole builders.

What’s all this about moles?
The contractors use accounts with the last name Mole, which references a bit of graffiti that appeared in the original city Regions long ago … “Beware the Mole People!” Of course, those moles who wish to make their primary account names known are certainly free to do so.

It sounds very much that one of the tasks which those hired will be working on is a new set of Second Life starter avatars, which are refreshed every so often. But of course there might be other projects, too. If you meet the qualifications (and I know that many of you do), then please consider applying to be a Mole in the Linden Department of Public Works!

Yes, you can be a Mole!

Rec Room Job Postings: The Social VR Company Is Planning for User Generated Content and a Marketplace

Last month, I wrote the following in an editorial on the current state of social VR:

So, it would appear that those social VR platforms that do have in-world economies can’t attract large numbers of users, and the ones that don’t have in-world economies might be popular, but obviously can’t keep running indefinitely without a means of generating profit.

And back in August, I noted that VRChat is looking to hire staff who can work on building a virtual economy and a marketplace for user-generated content.

Well, today I took a gander at the Jobs page on the Rec Room website, and guess what I found? Job postings for the following positions:

  • Game Designer, User Generated Content, with the responsibility to “utilize a broad range of game design techniques to make complex and intimidating User Content Creation tools approachable & easy to use for everyday gamers”;
  • Games Developer, Marketplace, where the successful applicant will “build the tools that allow creators to sell wares via the in-game economy”; and 
  • Senior Gameplay Engineer, User Generated Content, whose job will be to “design, build, implement and maintain creative tools that players use to collaboratively build within Rec Room”.

So it would appear that Rec Room, like VRChat, is also planning to implement an in-game economy, including a marketplace where user-generated content will be sold. Note also the mention of staff who will be working on easy-to-use, collaborative building tools for user content generation.

Of course, having an in-world economy would be an important step on the road to Rec Room becoming a profit-generating company. It will be interesting to watch as the company attempts to grow its userbase!

You Better Work! A Comprehensive Guide to Jobs in Second Life for Newbies

Image by mohamed_hassan on Pixabay

Sylvannas Zulaman has just posted a wonderfully detailed introductory guide for those new to Second Life, about how to get a job to earn some money. (And yes, there is no free money. Girl, you betta work!)

Here’s the link to her post in the official Second Life user forums. I think it’s a wonderful service to SL’s userbase. (I added my own comment about how to meet the requirement of many public-service type jobs such as host, DJ, customer service rep, stripper, escort, etc. for a modern mesh avatar without spending a fortune.)

Second Life Steals, Deals, and Freebies: How Do I Earn Free Money in Second Life?

sharon-mccutcheon-665638-unsplash.jpg
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

It never fails to happen. A newbie (i.e., someone new to Second Life) gets onto one of the SL forums and asks the inevitable question:

How do I earn free money in Second Life?

And the answer, of course, is that you can’t.

In the old days (say, a decade ago), you used to be able to hit the camping spots to earn a few Lindens. Those days are long gone; the very few camping spots that still exist in Second Life are closely guarded secrets, and the chances of you earning any amount of money by camping are pretty much history. Most camping spots earn you, at most, L$1 per 10 minutes, and most are L$1 per hour (and that’s if you can find them).

The closest thing I have found to “free money” in Second Life nowadays is the Magic Fishing system, and even then, you are limited to earning about 15 Linden dollars per fishing session, before the system locks you out for a period of time (usually something like 24 hours before you can try again at the same spot). You’re going to be fishing a long, long time to earn enough for that Catwa Bento head you’ve been eyeing.

If you happen to be good at trivia, you can earn some money by participating in the trivia tournaments which are held at various bars and other locations in SL. Join the Trivia Fiends group in-world, which regularly posts details on trivia contests in Second Life. However, you usually only win L$1 per correct answer, so it still can take quite a long time to amass enough money to buy something.

Your best chances of earning money in Second Life are to get a job. And the highest-earning jobs are those designing and creating content like clothing, hair, shoes, furnishings, trees, houses, animations, etc. that other avatars want to buy. And there’s a pretty steep learning curve associated with learning how to become a successful content creator in Second Life. Not to mention, it’s a lot of exhausting work to build a store and promote your brand in Second Life, competing against literally hundreds of other vendors. It’s not for everyone. You will likely spend weeks, months, even years working on your products before you can earn a significant income from them.

If you don’t have the time, skills, or patience to become a content creator, there are other types of jobs in-world. Clubs are always looking for DJs or hosts, and that is probably your best bet. You may also be lucky to find a business that needs customer service agents (e.g. a popular fashion store, or a land rental agency). Forget about becoming a fashion model; most stores now use alts (i.e. the creator’s alternate avatar accounts) as their fashion models or mannequins.

You can also try your luck working as an exotic dancer or even an escort (God knows, there’s enough places where you could work in SL), but you’ll need to have a very professional appearance (i.e., a mesh avatar head and body, plus sexy lingerie or other clothing), which means you’ll need to invest quite a few Lindens up front. Frankly, most people do not earn a lot of money by dancing or escorting (although you might hear of someone who does cam/voice work earning thousands of Linden dollars per session). And, let’s face it, not everybody has the stomach for this kind of soul-killing work.

You’re also unlikely to make money by being a blogger for Second Life, unless you’re already a well-known blogger like Strawberry Singh. There are literally hundreds of bloggers competing against each other for the limited number of official blogger spots for the best-known SL brands. If you are going to be a blogger, do it because you love it, and not because you expect to earn an income from it. The same goes for photography and videography/machinima; only the very best can make a living at it. This is not to discourage you; it’s simply stating a fact. You have to be the best to earn any money at it.

Where’s the best place to look for a job in Second Life? I would suggest that job seekers monitor the Inworld Employment section of the official Second Life discussion forums. There are also in-world employment agencies you can try (search for “job” or “employment” under the Places tab under Search in your Second Life client software), but don’t be surprised to find the same jobs (mostly for escorts) at the various agencies.

Finally, the most fool-proof method for earning Lindens is to BUY them on your credit card. Hate to break it to you, but it’s true.