80 Level Job Digest: Fresh Picks for Creatives
Check out this week's 80 Level Job Digest for top openings at Amazon Game Studios, Focus Entertainment, SEGA, NCSOFT, and thatgamecompany.
Games Researcher at Amazon Game Studios
Amazon Games is looking for a Games Researcher to help build new mass-market games with a multiplayer component. Working with game designers, you'll design and run gameplay user research tests across every development stage – from early prototypes through pre-launch validation – using both lightweight, rapid playtests and more structured approaches to evaluate onboarding, controls, difficulty, and engagement loops. You'll also benchmark player experience against third-party titles and platforms to find opportunities for differentiation, and act as the connector between the game experience and business goals by defining target players, test objectives, success criteria, and participant sourcing.
Qualifications:
- Experience in the games industry (supporting title development, release, or live ops).
- Experience conducting sophisticated and creative analysis of complex data, and translating the results into actionable deliverables, messages, and presentations.
- Experience working with cross-functional teams across business development, marketing, operations, product development, legal, etc.
- 5+ years of experience in playtesting, game UX, user research, or related roles.
- Experience designing and running gameplay user research tests or user studies, including a mix of prototype testing, usability testing, surveys, and player feedback collection.
- Familiarity with core gameplay systems (onboarding, controls, progression, difficulty, engagement loops).
Marketing Artist at Focus Entertainment
Within the graphic team, the Marketing Artist contributes to game promotion by producing animated and interactive marketing content (motion design and HTML formats) and in-game captures. You'll create motion design animations for short trailers, social networks, store pages, and advertising campaigns, plus animated HTML banners and modules for display, newsletters, landing pages, and special operations, all while respecting the game's visual identity.
Job requirements:
- Demonstrate proficiency in motion design tools: After Effects (or equivalent), and knowledge of video editing (Premiere Pro or equivalent).
- Show a good level of 2D graphic creation tools (Adobe Creative Suite).
- Have skills in HTML/CSS for creating banners and animated web content (HTML5).
- Explore 3D and/or a game engine (Unreal Engine, Unity, etc.) to understand production technical constraints and optimize in-game asset preparation.
- Demonstrate knowledge of the technical constraints of digital advertising formats (banners, interstitials, social networks) and distribution platforms.
- Show sensitivity to video game production constraints and to working from assets and in-game captures.
- Express a strong artistic sense and a good visual and video culture.
- Demonstrate your ability to work in a team.
- Show rigor, organization, autonomy, and respect for deadlines.
- Demonstrate your ability to understand a marketing brief and translate it into suitable visual proposals.
- Show curiosity, regularly monitoring motion trends, advertising formats, and visual codes in video games.
Principal VFX Artist at SEGA
In this new role, you will help define the VFX quality bar for the Total War products, mentor the VFX team, and collaborate with the core technology groups to develop proprietary tools and pipelines. You'll create high-quality visual effects that set the artistic and technical benchmark for internal teams and external partners, and guide the team to make visuals that are both beautiful and performant.
Essential:
- Ability to create and implement world-class real-time VFX in a game engine.
- Excellent visual awareness and artistic ability.
- 5+ years in game development and 3+ shipped titles.
- Experience mentoring artists and supporting career development.
- Skills in modelling, texturing, lighting, and image processing.
- Strong understanding of VFX asset costs and performance impact across platforms.
- Excellent interpersonal skills.
- Highly effective time-management and prioritisation skills.
- Awareness of industry technology trends.
- Understanding of game development processes.
- Love of games.
Knowledge of:
- Image manipulation tools (Photoshop, Substance Designer).
- 3D software (Maya, 3ds Max, or similar).
- Creating animated sprite sheets.
- Particle system optimisation.
- Particle system terminology and applications.
- Particle editors (Unreal Engine, Unity, or similar).
- Contemporary shader features and workflows.
3D Background Artist at NCSOFT
NC Corporation is hiring a 3D Background Artist to join the team. You'll produce high-quality background assets suitable for game art by thoroughly understanding the world setting and grasping the characteristics of the game engine. Live updates are part of the work too – creating the background assets needed for seasonal events and world updates. You'll also handle outsourcing conversion, closing the visual gap between external and internally produced resources and raising their quality.
Required:
- A minimum of 2 years of working experience.
- Proficiency in 3ds Max, ZBrush, Substance 3D Designer, Substance 3D Painter, and Unreal Engine 4.
- Experience in creating 3D environment assets (photorealistic fantasy-style in-game background assets, buildings, and natural objects).
- Experience in creating UE4 PBR-based assets.
- Excellent communication skills, proactive collaboration, and a strong sense of responsibility for one's work.
3D Character Artist (Mid-Senior) at thatgamecompany
thatgamecompany is looking for a Mid-Senior 3D Character Artist to join the team. You'll create 3D characters and cosmetics in a visual style aligned with the world of Sky, and handle the skinning of those character and cosmetic assets. Collaborating with project leads, concept artists, designers, and engineers, you'll brainstorm ideas and build rapid 3D prototypes during the concept and design phase, and support the rest of the 3D team on character assets. The role also includes reviewing and fixing bugs of all complexities, contributing to documentation and resource libraries for the art department, and taking part in a culture of inclusion and diversity.
Must-haves:
- An online portfolio demonstrating character art skills.
- 3+ years of experience as a 3D Character Artist at a game studio.
- Proficient modeling skills in Maya or equivalent.
- Self-motivated, humble, and a team player.
- Open-minded and able to implement feedback from peers and art directors in a timely manner.
- Passion for creating memorable characters for games.
- Understanding of industry-standard software such as Photoshop, ZBrush, and texture creation/material editing (Substance Painter, Unity).
- Familiarity with Maya rigging and skinning.
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