I did localisation QA for a few years, moved away and did some other game related jobs, then I used Valve’s Hammer to get a job as a junior level designer. Looking back I was not very technically proficient!
I learned Maya on the job and now I am learning Unreal Dev Kit & using Maya with it.
The more you know, the more you realise how little you know….
If I had the time, I’d love to get into the Unity engine, but as a level designer, unreal is where its at.