The biggest rock bands of the ’80s and ’90s — including Journey, Queen, Mötley Crüe, Aerosmith, and Metallica — achieved a specific cultural significance beyond their music, their videos, and their tours. Some of those arena rockers built video games around themselves, often to mixed results, in a way that doesn’t really happen anymore. Now, big musicians show up in Fortnite or Beat Saber or in mobile games built around their brands.But one indie developer is trying to bring the rock band-inspired video game back. Nicola Piovesan, head of Chaosmonger Studio, is turning his longtime fascination with the band Voivod into a game, Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior.If you haven’t heard of Voivod, then you’ve clearly not been dialed into the Canadian thrash and speed metal scene over the past 40 years. In all seriousness, that’s understandable; Voivod has never seen the level of global commercial success of a Metallica or an Aerosmith. But the Quebec-based group is a venerable, influential band across multiple metal genres, and like other notable metal acts (Megadeth, Iron Maiden), it has a specific artistic aesthetic and a mascot, the Voivod. Voivod, the character, is the creation of Michel “Away” Langevin, drummer for the band Voivod. The star of Langevin’s post-nuclear fiction, conveyed through album art and other illustrations, hails from a bleak sci-fi fantasy world known as Morgoth. Langevin is responsible for nearly all of Voivod’s artwork, and his distinct illustrative and musical style has long been an influence on Piovesan.Image: Chaosmonger Studio“I’ve been listening to the band since I was a teenager,” Piovesan said in an interview with Polygon. “Back then I was more like a metalhead. Now I listen to almost every sort of genre, but Voivod is one of those bands that I kept listening to through the years. They’re very eclectic and their sound is very original and it keeps going on, despite changes they’ve had in the lineup.”Langevin has been the sole consistent member of Voivod since its formation in 1982. He is responsible for the band’s visual aesthetic, which is full of dark, sci-fi imagery, usually rendered in ink, markers, and paint. The Voivod character appears on many album covers, including the band’s debut, War and Pain.Piovesan plans to adapt the world of Morgoth, the character Voivod, and the many strange alien creatures that Langevin has created over the past four decades into pixelated form for Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior, a Metroidvania-style, run-and-gun narrative game.During his previous career as a filmmaker, Piovesan directed an animated video for Voivod’s song “Target Earth.” He’d had the idea of a Voivod game “for a long time,” Piovesan said. “And in the meantime, I shifted my career from the film industry to the game industry. I released a few games in the meantime and I thought, OK, now is the right time to do a Voivod game, so I mentioned this to them during a concert in Prague a couple years ago.”“I started working on it concretely last year, slowly,” Piovesan said, and he approached the band with a pitch to make it official. “They were very happy also because they knew me from the music video I made for them. I shared [a few screenshots and the concept of the game] with Michel, and they were immediately on board with the idea.”Piovesan said his Voivod game pitch was “a bit retro in the style,” the “sort of retro pixel graphic inspired by the late ’80s, early ’90s games, which is the golden era of Voivod,” when the group released their most popular albums. (Piovesan grew up playing Amiga games — including the Motörhead beat-’em-up where you play as Lemmy Kilmister — and that influence is apparent in the Voivod game’s visual style.)Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior will follow the stories of the band’s concept albums, Piovesan said, though slightly altered to fit a “more standard game narrative.” The Voivod will change shape and earn new powers over the course of the game, in the Metroidvania style.“The idea is that [the Voivod’s] waking up in this sort of a nightmare, and he has to recover fragments of his mind,” Piovesan said. “So each level basically will have a different fragment. So there will be exploration, fighting, and narrative — also dialogue with NPCs to understand more about the story. When all the fragments are collected, then the character can escape this sort of cosmic nightmare that’s referenced in the lyrics of the concept albums.”Image: Chaosmonger StudioPiovesan is funding his Voivod passion project through Kickstarter. His fundraising campaign for Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior is already successful, though he has a handful of stretch goals to get through. Piovesan is handling game design and coding himself, and working with a small team of artists and musicians to adapt Voivod’s artwork and music into retro game form. He’s also working closely with the band. Langevin is contributing to the game’s visual design and artwork, while guitarist Daniel “Chewy” Mongrain supervises the musical adaptation; singer Denis “Snake” Bélanger will provide the voice of the protagonist; and bassist Dominic “Rocky” Laroche playtests and provides gameplay feedback.Voivod: The Nuclear Warrior is still early in development; Piovesan’s Kickstarter campaign lists a November 2026 release date, but it sounds more like it’ll be a “when it’s ready” kind of thing. “When people ask me when the game is going to be ready, it’s always hard to reply because I’m not doing this for money,” he said. “I’m a fan of the band, and for me, it’s important to make a good game first of all, and to pay tribute to the Voivod universe. So I’m really interested in making it a good game, first of all.“I’ve learned that for making games, you need two years to make 90% of the game, and you need two years more to do the last 10%,” he said. “In the case of Voivod, I hope it won’t be a four-year thing.”See More:

Menu Home News Hardware Gaming Mobile Finance Deals Reviews How To Wccftech Hardware Intel Arc Battlemage iGPUs “140V & 130V” Receive A 10% Performance Boost in Games With Latest Drivers Hassan Mujtaba • Apr 29, 2025 at 04:57pm EDT Intel's Battlemage iGPUs, namely the Arc 140V & Arc 130V, have received a free performance boost in the latest graphics driver update. Intel Boosts Arc Battlemage "140V & 130V" iGPUs With More Gaming Performance, Delivered In The Latest Graphics Driver Update Intel's Lunar Lake "Core Ultra 200V" CPUs were launched last year and have seen very positive reviews based on their strong efficiency figures and great graphics performance. The graphics performance in particular has been a highlight since they were the first debut of the Xe2 GPU architecture, which went on to power the Arc "Battlemage" discrete graphics cards, which also turned out to be superb value, based on our review. While Intel has continued to deliver promising graphics driver updates, the latest one is specific to the Arc iGPUs, mainly the 140V and 130V, which are based on the Xe2 "Battlemage" architecture. In the latest blog post, Intel states that users can expect even more gaming performance using the latest driver package. Image Source: Intel For evaluation purposes, Intel compares the performance of the MSI Claw 7 AI+, which features the Arc 140V iGPU featured on the Core Ultra 7 268V CPU. This handheld has been a key "Core Ultra 2" product, and to showcase the performance uplifts in low-power gaming (17W), the Blue Team used its latest "6734" driver and compared it against the "6732" driver. Performance Uplifts (Average FPS) Black Myth Wukong: +13.8% God of War Ragnarök: +6.9% Hogwarts Legacy: +6.8% Cyberpunk 2077: +6.1% Marvel's Spider-Man: +6.9% PayDay 3: +12.6% DOTA 2: +16.0% Counter-Strike 2: +8.0% Fortnite S34: +17.9% A total of 9 games were tested, and the company shares both Average FPS and 99th Percentile figures, which show an average uplift of 10% in FPS and 25% better 99th percentile figures. These numbers once again show a marked improvement brought to handheld users by Intel's graphics division. Furthermore, the new Intel Arc graphics driver update won't be restricted to just the MSI Claw 8 AI+ and Claw 7 AI+ handhelds but will also be rolled out across all platforms running the Intel Arc 140V & 130V iGPU series. Subscribe to get an everyday digest of the latest technology news in your inbox Follow us on Topics Sections Company Some posts on wccftech.com may contain affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com © 2025 WCCF TECH INC. 700 - 401 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Rotational Engineer, Central Technology - Sherman Oaks, CAActivisionSherman Oaks California 91403 United States of America41 minutes agoApplyJob Title:Rotational Engineer, Central Technology - Sherman Oaks, CARequisition ID:R025271Job Description:Your MissionActivision Central Tech is seeking hardworking programmers starting their careers to join the Central Tech Rotational Program (CTRP), an 18-month rotational engineering program that provides a breadth of skills while participants rotate across various Activision game studios and teams. This is a rare West Coast opportunity to accelerate your career by developing ground breaking games technology, learning the next-gen consoles inside and out, and working on leading AAA game titles with top developers like Treyarch, Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software.Please note, the start date for this program will be in August 2024.Mission ReportThree 6-month rotationsRotations mapped to product launches/updates, business needs, and employee interestTraining and development opportunities, including mentorshipOpportunity to find your fit and gain exposure to multiple Activision teams.Rotations can include, but are not limited to, the following engineering functions:Game SecurityGraphicsOnline ServicesToolsCall of Duty MobileMission AccomplishedUpon completion of the program, successful participants will be invited to apply for a full-time position at the company.Player ProfileAt minimum, you should have completed basic training in C++ (there will be a test)Experience with network programming (TCP, UDP, security, NAT, etc.), client/server architecture, database development experienceSometimes you have to decode to get through some comms. If you know LUA, Python or Java you can level the gameThe AssignmentOwn, operate and support the services and features you developImplementing features deep within game-specific enginesSolve and fix online and multiplayer featuresExcited and motivated to learn new areas of developmentHave a code sample? Share your portfolio link or GithubYour PlatformActivision Central Tech works to support our development studios and their titles. Comprised of seven main teams, we have many specialties including data, privacy and security, motion capture and animation pipeline technologies, graphics, build and infrastructure for studio development and data centers, optimization, systems programming, and online services including matchmaking and networking. Central Tech is distributed globally with offices across the U.S., and in Canada, England, Ireland and Japan.Most of our teams are comprised of both engineering and research talent, allowing us to always have an eye on the future. Our dedicated engineers help with title development and provide valuable collaboration between studios while our researchers make things happen and keep a strong connection with the needs of the game studios.Central Tech is part of Activision. To learn more about us and our research, please visit us at https://research.activision.com/ .Our WorldAt Activision, we strive to create the most iconic brands in gaming and entertainment. We’re driven by our mission to deliver unrivaled gaming experiences for the world to enjoy, together. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, Crash Bandicoot™, Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™, and Guitar Hero®. As a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and products, our “press start” is simple: delight hundreds of millions of players around the world with innovative, fun, thrilling, and engaging entertainment experiences.We’re not just looking back at our decades-long legacy; we’re forging ahead to keep advancing gameplay with some of the most popular titles and sophisticated technology in the world. We have bold ambitions to create the most inclusive company as we know our success comes from the passionate, creative, and diverse teams within our organization.We’re in the business of delivering fun and unforgettable entertainment for our player community to enjoy. And our future opportunities have never been greater — this could be your opportunity to level up.Ready to Activate Your Future?We love hearing from anyone who is enthusiastic about changing the games industry. Not sure you meet all qualifications? Let us decide! Research shows that women and members of other under-represented groups tend to not apply to jobs when they think they may not meet every qualification, when, in fact, they often do! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and strongly encourage you to apply.We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status, among other characteristics.We are committed to working with and providing reasonable assistance to individuals with physical and mental disabilities. If you are a disabled individual requiring an accommodation to apply for an open position, please email your request to accommodationrequests@activisionblizzard.com. General employment questions cannot be accepted or processed here. Thank you for your interest.RewardsWe provide a suite of benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being for ‘Every World’ - we’ve got our employees covered! Subject to eligibility requirements, the Company offers comprehensive benefits including:Medical, dental, vision, health savings account or health reimbursement account, healthcare spending accounts, dependent care spending accounts, life and AD&D insurance, disability insurance;401(k) with Company match, tuition reimbursement, charitable donation matching;Paid holidays and vacation, paid sick time, floating holidays, compassion and bereavement leaves, parental leave;Mental health & wellbeing programs, fitness programs, free and discounted games, and a variety of other voluntary benefit programs like supplemental life & disability, legal service, ID protection, rental insurance, and others;If the Company requires that you move geographic locations for the job, then you may also be eligible for relocation assistance.Eligibility to participate in these benefits may vary for part time and temporary full-time employees and interns with the Company. You can learn more by visiting https://www.benefitsforeveryworld.com/ .In the U.S., the standard base pay range for this role is $30.05 - $55.59 Hourly. These values reflect the expected base pay range of new hires across all U.S. locations. Ultimately, your specific range and offer will be based on several factors, including relevant experience, performance, and work location. Your Talent Professional can share this role’s range details for your local geography during the hiring process. In addition to a competitive base pay, employees in this role may be eligible for incentive compensation. Incentive compensation is not guaranteed. While we strive to provide competitive offers to successful candidates, new hire compensation is negotiable. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply

A humble piece of sushi cleans mold off leftovers in the fridge. That’s the premise of Moldwasher, a small pixel art curio with serene ambient tunes that is coming to Steam later this year. It recently landed on the the r/powerwashingporn subreddit where it became a mini-sensation.Suggested ReadingUnboxing The Baldur’s Gate 3 Collector’s Edition Share SubtitlesOffEnglishview videoSuggested ReadingUnboxing The Baldur’s Gate 3 Collector’s Edition Share SubtitlesOffEnglishIt’s being made by solo indie dev Rubel Games and sports a unique twist on traditional power washing games: here, the stuff your cleaning away isn’t static. Unlike the dirt you blast off a muddy truck in PowerWash Sim, the mold has a life of its own and will slowly grow back when you’re not spraying it down. Waste too much time cleansing an old bell pepper and that abandoned jar of stuffed olives you bought for those classic martinis you only made once will soon become ensconced in the dusty fungus.Currently slated to release near the end of 2025, Moldwasher promises a range of unlockables, various treasures to clean, and lots of different mold types to combat, including mimic, crystalline, and glowing variants. I hope it goes full Dungeons & Dragons and adds some slime boss fights, though that might go against the meditative energy at the game’s core, which will include non-AI lo-fi chiptunes. This isn’t just an idle post on a subreddit showing off a cool mockup. Instead, Moldwasher follows two previous sanitation-inspired games. The first was strategy sim Listeria Wars and the second was the tactical roguelike Staying Fresh, which wasPowerWash Simulator is getting its own follow-up as well. PowerWash Sim 2 is arriving sometime in the fall with split-screen co-op and other new features..

A few months ago, Unity launched day-one support for Android XR with tools, features, and dedicated documentation to help developers start experimenting and creating on this exciting new platform.We recently sat down with developers from four industry-leading XR studios – Owlchemy Labs, TRIPP, Resolution Games, and Litesport – to hear more about their experiences porting apps and creating new experiences in Android XR. These teams shared insight into their successes and challenges, and they provided actionable advice for developers ready to chart their course into Android XR development.TRIPP, an AI powered mental wellness app available on mobile and VR platforms, is bringing their flagship title to Android XR, while Resolution Games is porting their hit title Demeo. Litesport is bringing over numerous apps and titles: their Litesport app plus Rumble Boxing, PureBarre, StretchLab, Cyclebar, and Club Pilates, their five Xponential+ fitness titles. Lastly, Owlchemy Labs is bringing over Vacation Simulator and Job Simulator. Owlchemy Labs is also creating a new game exclusively for Android XR, Inside [JOB], which is designed as an onboarding experience onto the new platform.If you’re planning on creating and/or porting your existing games and apps to Android XR, keep on reading! Why developers are creating for Android XR and choosing UnityExploring a new platform can be both an exciting and challenging endeavor. When we asked developers why they chose Unity for their Android XR development, they commented on Unity’s robust multiplatform support, integration with emerging XR standards like OpenXR, and developer-friendly resources like sample projects and templates.Phillip Johnson, lead platform engineer at Owlchemy Labs, explains his appreciation of Unity’s support for Android XR: “Unity's strength lies in its multi-platform support, making it a top choice for game developers. Android XR support is particularly easy due to Unity's existing Android compatibility and the flexibility of the Android XR framework. This efficiency allows developers to focus on improving gameplay and user experience.”For Resolution Games, porting their hit game Demeo to Android XR wasn’t just about expanding to a new audience – it was an opportunity to modernize the game for all platforms. Petter Nygren, tech lead for Demeo, shares that, “Android XR requires a modernization of the game that also benefits all the platforms and the game as a whole.”As experienced XR developers, the transition aligns with their ethos of embracing new devices. As Nygren explains, “We’re right in the middle of XR development. Any new platform is a great step forward. Android XR is the next step for us.” Nygren credits Unity for making the process smooth, especially due to features like OpenXR input handling and Universal Render Pipeline (URP) integrations, saying “We would not have been able to create the same product without Unity as the engine.”Porting to Android XRWhile it makes sense to bring your game to a new platform – whether to reach a wider audience, meet players where they’re already gaming, or be an early option on a new headset – porting an existing game to a new platform can require copious amounts of time and labor to get it to fit new platform specifications, especially if you're developing natively for each one. Using a tool like Unity, which supports more than 20 platforms including Meta Quest, visionOS, and PlayStation VR2, can streamline this process.Daniel Kharlas, TRIPP’s director of Product & Technology Operations, credits Unity for its proactive communication with developers. “Unity has been very clear in their direction – from embracing URP, OpenXR, and XR Interaction Toolkit to emphasizing standards for XR hands,” he says. “All of these decisions made it easier for us to adapt quickly, especially moving into Android XR. Unity and Google’s partnership, combined with these choices, really shine here.”Advice for getting started now, without hardwareJust because there’s limited availability of development hardware doesn’t mean you can’t get started with Android XR today. We talked to our developers about what challenges they faced and some tactical advice for how to get started.For both Resolution Games and TRIPP, a specific challenge was making the switch to URP. Nygren from Resolution Games explains that, “It’s important to maintain the original look of the game, and that has been quite challenging in the update… It’s very hard to sort of replicate the look of the built-in render pipeline with URP if you want to keep it one-to-one with the visuals. The game is quite big, and there’s a lot of assets and content. It was a lot of work to do the upgrade and retain the same look.”“Converting projects with custom shaders to URP was our most labor-intensive step when transitioning from Built-in Rendering to URP,” explains Kharlas from TRIPP. “If you have complex custom shaders – often used for unique art styles in VR – be prepared to invest the time needed to convert those to URP-supported shaders. In the long run, this will make subsequent ports, like to Android XR, much smoother.”Kharlas laid out clear steps for how to prepare for Android XR development, even without a headset in hand. First, developers must start by updating your projects to Unity 6 [or 6.1] and adopt OpenXR. Then, Kharlas gives the following recommendations:Use URP (Universal Render Pipeline) to ensure graphical compatibilityTransition to Vulkan for better performanceLeverage XR Hands packages since Android XR is hands-firstBoth Litesport and TRIPP found the VR and MR multiplayer templates and Android XR sample project invaluable to get started. “I’d recommend following Unity’s sample project setup for Android XR. Understanding how elements work together before you begin porting or creating your app accelerates your learning curve,” explains Ryan Turner, Software Lead at Litesport. For more information on converting to URP, check out our e-book, Introduction to the URP for advanced creators – which has been newly updated for Unity 6. You can also access our ebook Create popular shaders and visual effects with the Universal Render Pipeline to learn more about shaders. For those looking to get started with our VR multiplayer template, watch our video tutorial:New capabilities in Unity 6Back in October 2024, Unity 6 was released with Android XR support being made available beginning on Unity 6 and onward. Therefore, those creating for Android XR must upgrade your projects to Unity 6 or newer.Luckily, representatives of all studios are enthusiastic about their Unity 6 experiences thus far.For Litesport, this meant skipping two versions up to Unity 6, which is necessary for Android XR support: “We were on Unity 2021, and so we upgraded to Unity 6 before we started the port, and that was critical... We have a complicated app with a whole bunch of stuff in it… and the upgrade's been awesome" explained Turner.When asked about Unity 6, Nygren from Resolution Games explained: “Unity 6 is quite similar to previous versions, making migration relatively easy. It functions as expected, which is great. The only Unity 6-specific feature we used for the Demeo port was Adaptive Probe Volumes, the new light probe system. This system was especially appreciated by our lighting artist, who found it to be an improvement over the previous system.”What’s new in Unity 6.1 and Android XR Pre-Release packageWe recently launched our first update release to Unity 6: Unity 6.1. For XR developers building in Unity 6.1 (released last week), you can now streamline the build process with the ability to create multiple build configurations and leverage support for Shader Graph with URP Application Spacewarp. We’ve already been working with Litesport and TRIPP to validate our tools on Android XR through our production verification initiative that ensures our latest platforms are tested using real productions.We also released our Android XR Pre-Release package, which brings several exciting features and optimizations: Dynamic Refresh Rate to optimize performance and power consumption based on your XR application’s current needs; Multi-View Per View Viewports support for Vulkan; visibility mesh occlusion to enhance GPU performance for post-processing effects; hand mesh functionality that enables hand visualization and occlusion; and updates to the Unity MR Template, including occlusion and persistent anchors.Takeaways: Upgrade to Unity 6 and begin todayAs these four studios demonstrate, Android XR development with Unity offers exciting opportunities paired with surprisingly smooth workflows. Whether you’re building new apps or migrating existing ones, here are key takeaways:Upgrade to Unity 6 and adopt OpenXR: These two steps are required for creating your Android XR project. Additionally, use Vulkan as your rendering API to significantly reduce GPU overhead while maintaining graphics quality.Start now, even without hardware: Leverage Unity’s latest tools, templates, and documentation to help you get started.To stay updated on Unity’s latest Android XR news and developments, be sure to bookmark the #AndroidXR tag. For everything XR, visit Unity’s XR development homepage to explore all the tools and resources we have to offer.

In Brief Posted: 5:21 PM PDT · April 29, 2025 Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company’s code was written by AI Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that 20%-30% of code inside the company’s repositories was “written by software” — meaning AI — during a fireside chat with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Meta’s LlamaCon conference on Tuesday. Nadella gave the figure after Zuckerberg asked roughly how much of Microsoft’s code is AI-generated today. The Microsoft CEO said the company was seeing mixed results in AI-generated code across different languages, with more progress in Python and less in C++. Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott previously said he expects 95% of all code to be AI-generated by 2030. When Nadella threw the question back at Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO said he didn’t know how much of Meta’s code is being generated by AI. On Microsoft rival Google’s earnings call last week, CEO Sundar Pichai said AI was generating more than 30% of the company’s code. Of course, it’s unclear how exactly Microsoft and Google are measuring what’s AI-generated versus not, so these figures are best taken with a grain of salt. Topics

Perfect Tides: Station to Station, Three Bees' adventure game sequel, is bringing the series to the Nintendo Switch for the first time.Read More

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OpenAI is rolling back its latest GPT-4o update after CEO Sam Altman said the company would be making fixes to address the chatbot’s “sycophant-y and annoying” personality introduced with recent updates. The rollback, which started Monday night, is “now 100%” rolled back for free ChatGPT users and will be rolled back for paid users “hopefully today,” Altman says in a post on X. “We’re working on additional fixes to model personality and will share more in the coming days.” OpenAI updated GPT-4o with improved “intelligence and personality,” Altman announced on Friday. But less than ten minutes after making that post, an X user said that “it’s been feeling very yes-man like lately,” to which Altman responded soon after with “yeah it glazes too much” and “will fix.” Then, on Sunday, Altman announced that OpenAI was working on some fixes “asap” to address personality issues from “the last couple” of GPT-4o updates. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you probably know I started my career as a QA engineer before transitioning into the world of data analytics. I didn’t go to school for it, didn’t have a mentor, and didn’t land in a formal training program. Everything I know today—from SQL to modeling to storytelling with data—is self-taught. And believe me, it’s been a journey of trial, error, learning, and re-learning. The Dilemma That Changed My Career A few years ago, I started thinking about switching organizations. Like many people in fast-evolving tech roles, I faced a surprisingly difficult question: What role am I actually doing? Which roles should I apply for? On paper, I was a Data Analyst. But in reality, my role straddled several functions: writing SQL pipelines, building dashboards, defining KPIs, and digging into product analytics. I wasn’t sure whether I should be applying for Analyst roles, BI roles, or something entirely different. To make things worse, back then, job titles were vague, and job descriptions were bloated with buzzwords. You’d find a posting titled “Data Analyst” that listed requirements like: Build ML pipelines Write complex ETL scripts Maintain data lakes Create dashboards Present executive-level insights And oh, by the way, be great at stakeholder management It was overwhelming and confusing. And I know I’m not alone in this. Fast forward to today: thankfully, things are evolving. There’s still overlap between roles, but organizations have started to define them more clearly. In this article, I want to break down the real differences between data roles, through the lens of a real-world example. A Real-World Scenario: Meet Quikee Let’s imagine a fictional quick-commerce startup called Quikee, launching across multiple Indian cities. Their value proposition? Deliver groceries and essentials within 10 minutes. Customers place orders through the app or website. Behind the scenes, there are micro-warehouses (also called “dark stores”) across cities, and a fleet of delivery partners who make those lightning-fast deliveries. Now, let’s walk through the data needs of this company—from the moment an order is placed, to the dashboards executives use in their Monday morning meetings. Step 1: Capturing and Storing Raw Data The moment a customer places an order, transactional data is generated: Timestamps Order ID Items ordered Price Discount codes Customer location Payment method Assigned delivery partner Let’s assume Quikee uses Amazon Kinesis to stream this data in real time to an S3 data lake. That stream is high-volume, time-sensitive, and crucial for business tracking. But here’s the catch: raw data is messy. You can’t use it directly for decision-making. So what happens next? Step 2: Building Data Pipelines Enter the Data Engineers. They are responsible for: Ingesting real-time data Validating schema consistency Handling failures and retries Writing pipelines to move data from S3 into a data warehouse (say, Snowflake or Redshift) This is where ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) or ELT pipelines come into play. Data engineers clean, format, and structure the data to make it queryable. For example, an order table might get split into: Orders → One row per order Order_Items → One row per item in an order Payments → One row per payment attempt At this stage, raw logs are turned into structured tables that analysts can work with. Step 3: Dimensional Modeling & OLAP As leadership starts asking strategic questions like: “Which city brings in the most revenue?” “Which store is underperforming?” “What’s our average delivery time by zone?” …it becomes clear that querying transactional data directly won’t scale. That’s where dimensional modeling comes in. Instead of flat, raw tables, data is structured into Fact and Dimension Tables. Fact Tables Large, quantitative data tables which contain foreign keys along with measures and metrics (Well, most of the time. There are factless fact tables as well which do not have any measures). Examples: fact_orders, fact_payments, fact_deliveries Contain metrics like revenue, order count, delivery time Dimension Tables Smaller, descriptive tables that help understand the data in a fact table Examples: dim_store, dim_product, dim_customer, dim_delivery_agent Help filter, group, and join facts for deeper insights This structure enables OLAP—fast, analytical querying across multiple dimensions. For example, you can now run queries like: “Show me average delivery time by store and hour of day, over the last 7 days.” This step is done by Data Engineers at most of the organisations but I did build few Dim and Fact tables when I was working as a Business Intelligence Engineer at Amazon. Step 4: Defining KPIs and Metrics This is where Analytics Engineers (or BI Engineers) shine. They sit between the technical data layer and business users. Their responsibilities often include: Defining KPIs (e.g., churn rate, repeat purchase %, time-to-fulfillment) Writing logic for complex metrics (e.g., cohort retention, active users) Creating semantic models or metrics layers in tools like dbt or Looker Ensuring consistent definitions across the company For example, at Amazon, our team didn’t query raw data to calculate revenue every time. Instead, we created pre-aggregated fact tables at daily, weekly, and monthly grains. That way, dashboards loaded faster, and metrics stayed consistent across teams. Analytics Engineers act as translators between engineering and the business—defining what we measure and how we measure it. Step 5: Analysis, Reporting & Storytelling Now comes the role of the Data Analyst. Armed with clean, modeled data, they focus on answering real business questions like: “Why did retention drop in Bangalore last month?” “Which coupon codes drive the most new users?” “What are the top products reordered in the first 30 days?” They build dashboards in tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Looker. They run ad-hoc SQL queries. They dive into A/B test results, user behavior trends, and campaign effectiveness. But above all, they tell stories with data—making complex numbers understandable and actionable for stakeholders. Who’s Who? Generated by Author TL;DR: Where Do You Fit? Here’s how I think about it: Love building robust pipelines and solving scalability problems? → You’re a Data Engineer Love defining business metrics and organizing complex datasets? → You’re an Analytics Engineer Love uncovering insights and storytelling with data? → You’re a Data Analyst Of course, real-world roles often blend these. Especially at smaller companies, you may wear multiple hats. And that’s okay. The key is not the title—but where you add the most value and what energizes you. Final Thoughts It took me a long time to understand what I actually do—not just what my job title says. And if you’ve ever felt that confusion, you’re not alone. Today, I can clearly say I operate at the intersection of data modeling, business logic, and storytelling—a sweet spot between analytics and engineering. And I’ve learned that the ability to connect the dots is more important than fitting into a perfect box. If you’ve walked a similar path—or wear multiple hats in your role—I’d love to hear your story. Drop a comment or share this with someone figuring it out too. The post Data Analyst or Data Engineer or Analytics Engineer or BI Engineer ? appeared first on Towards Data Science.