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Contract - Associate Level Game Designer (Nst)

nintendo

Redmond, WA
Design Information Security Cloud Solutions

Job Score

100 pts
On-site model (+70) Design (+10) Information Security (+10) Cloud Solutions (+10)

Nintendo Software Technology Corporation
 
Nintendo Software Technology Corporation, based in Redmond, Washington , is a wholly owned subsidiary of the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of video games, Nintendo Co., Ltd., headquartered in Kyoto, Japan.  Nintendo Software Technology's mission is to design, develop and deliver the very best video games. We conduct research, use state-of-the-art equipment and review methods of operation so that we may continually improve the quality of the games that we produce. Each person employed at Nintendo Software Technology Corporation is a valued team member and is encouraged to participate in our efforts to create the highest quality games. 

Nintendo is an equal opportunity employer. We offer a welcoming and inclusive environment in service to one another, our products, the diverse consumers we represent, and the communities we call home. We do all of this with kindness, empathy and respect for each other.

DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES

Nintendo Software Technology is a tight-knit game development studio located in Redmond, WA. As part of the Nintendo family, we're passionate about creating games designed to surprise and delight our customers. 

As a Level Designer, you will have a desire to contribute and implement, play-test, and refine game design features, with consideration to gameplay. Proven experience with level design for gameplay is needed. If this sounds like you, we would love to see your resume

  • Implements design specifications into playable prototypes using various software tools.
  • Able to quickly revise implementation based on changes required to continue iterating on design concepts.
  • Assists in designing prototypes to iterate concepts into a more complete idea.
  • Assists and maintains game play mechanics within a game.
  • Creates areas of a user-interface design and maintains assigned product localization with the direction of senior designers and above.
  • Communicates ideas with various product development personnel to solicit feedback and ensure support during product development.
  • Within a team, provides input into defining creative vision and technical specifications for assigned project.
  • Writes and maintains assigned design documentation
  • Works closely with senior designers and above to attain constructive feedback and direction.
  • Applies professional expertise to review, analyze and test products under development as a contributing member of a production team to ensure delivery of Nintendo’s high standard of quality and timeliness.

SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS

  • 0-2 years of level design for video games or relevant experience. 
  • Understanding of interactive software methodologies, production pipelines and Nintendo quality standards.
  • Proven proficiency with commercial 2D/3D game editor. (E.g. Unity, Unreal, etc.)
  • Basic PC skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).
  • Undergraduate degree in Game Design, Computer Science or equivalent
  • Studies in music, art, films, television / broadcasting, and multimedia a plus.

Applicants must be legally eligible to work in the United States to be considered. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

This position is hybrid in Redmond, WA. Hybrid positions require regular onsite work following the schedule and guidelines for their division. This position is not open to fully remote status at this time. 

This contract position includes the base pay range listed below and is eligible for benefits through the employing agency. Agency benefits include eligibility for medical insurance, employee assistance program, and paid sick leave. All benefits are subject to elections, eligibility requirements, plan and program terms. Benefits offerings will be confirmed at the time of offer by the employing agency, and may differ depending on the employing agency partner.

 

 

Pay Range:
$34—$51 USD
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About Design

The Design field, especially UX/UI and Product Design, has experienced significant growth in recent years. With accelerated business digitization, the demand for professionals who can create intuitive and pleasant digital experiences has never been higher.

Key skills include Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, user research, design thinking, prototyping, and system design. Product designers are increasingly valued for their direct impact on business results.

Remote work has opened doors for Brazilian designers to work for global companies, with competitive salaries in dollars and euros.

About Information Security

The Information Security area is one of the most strategic and in-demand fields in the technology market. With the rise of cyberattacks, data breaches, and regulations like LGPD and GDPR, companies of all sizes invest heavily in professionals who can protect their digital assets.

Key specializations include Network Security, Cloud Security (AWS, Azure, GCP), Offensive Security (Penetration Testing, Red Team), Defensive Security (SOC, Blue Team), AppSec, and Security Governance. Tools like SIEM (Splunk, QRadar), firewalls, EDR, and Vulnerability Management platforms are essential.

Certifications like CISSP, CEH, OSCP, CompTIA Security+, and AWS Security Specialty are important differentiators. Information security professionals are among the highest-paid in the sector, with growing demand especially in fintechs, healthtechs, and large enterprises.

About Cloud Solutions

The Cloud Solutions area is responsible for designing, implementing, and managing cloud infrastructure and services (AWS, Azure, GCP) for companies. Cloud professionals architect scalable, secure, and cost-optimized solutions, from data center migrations to serverless and multi-cloud architectures.

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Cloud Solutions professionals in technology companies are highly valued, especially those who master multi-cloud architectures, FinOps, and can optimize costs while maintaining performance and security. The field offers opportunities from cloud engineer to cloud solutions architect, head of cloud, and chief cloud architect.

Discover Other Areas

Understand the scope of work, key skills, and tools used in different career areas.

About Copywriting

The Copywriting area is responsible for creating persuasive, creative, and strategic texts for various communication channels. Copywriting professionals transform ideas into words that engage, convert, and build brand voice.

Key skills include advertising copywriting, script writing for videos and podcasts, persuasive writing, tone of voice, and editorial guidelines. Knowledge of SEO writing, Grammarly, and text productivity tools is a differentiator.

Copywriting professionals in technology companies are highly valued, especially those who master copy for landing pages, email sequences, and funnel content. The field offers opportunities from junior copywriter to head of copy, with a focus on creativity, persuasion, and performance.

About Graphic Designer

The Graphic Designer is the professional responsible for creating visual pieces for print and digital communication, from visual identity and logos to marketing materials and packaging. They combine creativity with technique to convey messages visually and impactfully.

Key skills include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, CorelDRAW, visual identity design, typography, color theory, packaging design, and motion graphics. Knowledge of vector illustration, offset/digital printing, and print production is a differentiator.

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The Web3 area represents the new phase of the decentralized internet, built on blockchain technology. Web3 professionals create decentralized applications (dApps), interact with smart contracts, manage digital assets (cryptocurrencies and NFTs), and utilize DeFi (Decentralized Finance) protocols, revolutionizing how data, ownership, and finance are managed online.

About Content Writer

The Content Writer is the professional responsible for creating quality written content for websites, blogs, social media, and other digital platforms. They combine writing skills with content strategy and SEO to attract, engage, and convert audiences.

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The Marketing area is strategic for the growth and positioning of any company. It encompasses traditional marketing, brand management, market research, trade marketing, product marketing, and market intelligence. Marketing professionals are responsible for planning and executing strategies that connect brands to their target audience.

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Marketing professionals in technology companies are highly valued, especially those who master product marketing, go-to-market strategy, and data-driven marketing. The field offers opportunities from analyst to CMO, with a focus on growth, brand positioning, and return on investment.

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Design Career Guide

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Marketing Career Guide

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Finance Career Guide

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Tech & Remote Glossary

Stop getting lost in interviews and job descriptions

The job market, especially within tech and global companies, has developed its own dialect. Not understanding these acronyms can make you lose valuable opportunities or poorly negotiate your contract. To end this problem, we created the Definitive Glossary for the Remote Professional.

🏢 Work Models & Routine

Async (Asynchronous Work)
A communication model where responses don't need to be immediate. Instead of back-to-back meetings, the team relies on well-structured documents, threads, and messages. It's the gold standard for global companies spanning multiple time zones.
Sync (Synchronous Work)
The opposite of Async. It requires the team to be online and available at the same time for meetings, live chats, and real-time collaboration.
Daily / Stand-up
A quick daily meeting (usually 15 minutes) common in Agile (Scrum) methodologies. The team answers three questions: What did I do yesterday? What will I do today? Are there any blockers?
All-Hands / Town Hall
A company-wide meeting involving all employees. Usually led by the founders (C-Levels) to present results, new goals, and answer team questions.
1:1 (One-on-One)
A recurring individual meeting between a professional and their direct manager. It is used for career alignment, feedback, and problem-solving, not just for project status updates.

💰 Contracts, Benefits & Compensation

PTO (Paid Time Off)
Instead of strict, categorized leave policies, modern US companies usually offer a flexible pool of days (e.g., 20 days of PTO, or even "Unlimited PTO") that you can use for vacations, sick days, or personal matters, while receiving your regular compensation.
Equity / Stock Options
Company ownership. The startup offers you the right to buy shares at a heavily discounted strike price in the future. If the company grows, goes public, or is acquired, these shares can be highly lucrative.
Vesting (Vesting Schedule)
The rule that controls your Equity. It usually lasts 4 years. You don't get all the shares on day one; you "earn" them gradually as you stay with the company. A "1-year Cliff" means you must stay for at least one year to receive your first batch of shares.
RSUs (Restricted Stock Units)
Unlike Stock Options (where you have the right to buy the stock), RSUs are actual shares the company grants you as a bonus or part of your compensation package, following a strict Vesting schedule.
Independent Contractor (1099 / B2B)
The most common international hiring model for global talent working for US companies. You act as a service provider (business-to-business), receiving the gross salary (often six-figure compensation) without standard local payroll tax deductions at the source.

🤖 Recruitment & Hiring Process

ATS (Applicant Tracking System)
The "robot" that reads your resume. Software like Greenhouse, Ashby, and Workday are used to filter candidates by keywords before a human even looks at the document. (Pro tip: this is why your resume must be clean, semantic, and have the right keywords).
JD (Job Description)
The document that lists the responsibilities, technical requirements, and benefits of the open position.
Cultural Fit
The interview stage that evaluates if your core values, communication style, and worldview align with the company's culture. This is the ultimate test of your Soft Skills.
Onboarding
The integration process. It's the period of your first few weeks at the company, where you get your access credentials, learn about the culture, study the internal documentation, and understand how the product works.

🚀 How to use this to your advantage?

The secret isn't just knowing what these acronyms mean, but using them actively. If during an interview for a premium tech role you ask, "How does your PTO policy and Vesting schedule work?", the recruiter will immediately perceive you as a high-level professional, familiar with the global market standards.

The remote job market requires preparation. And having the right vocabulary is the first big step to securing six-figure proposals and standing out among thousands of applicants.

Expert Tip

The Back-End Development Market

The Back-End Development Market: Barriers, Opportunities, and the Path to the Top

Behind every brilliant application, revolutionary artificial intelligence, or successful fintech, there is an invisible and robust ecosystem. Welcome to the Back-End universe.

The Modern Back-End Paradox: Did AI Steal the Jobs?

With the rise of tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor, many junior developers wonder if the Back-End career is threatened. The short answer is: no. In fact, it has evolved.

Artificial Intelligence has made writing basic "CRUD" (Create, Read, Update, Delete) code trivial. However, the market no longer pays six-figure salaries for writing repetitive code. The global market is actively hunting for Software Engineers—professionals who understand architecture, resilience, latency, and scalability. The Back-End didn't die; the bar was simply raised.

Barriers to Entry: What Separates Juniors from Seniors

Entering Back-End development today requires overcoming technical barriers that go far beyond mastering a programming language (like Java, C#, Go, or Python). Key barriers include:

  • System Design: Knowing how to design a system that supports 100 users is easy. Designing one that handles 1 million requests per second requires deep knowledge of load balancing, caching (Redis/Memcached), and message queues (RabbitMQ/Kafka).
  • Data Complexity: The debate is no longer just "SQL vs. NoSQL". It is about data modeling, replication, sharding, and how to avoid database bottlenecks in distributed systems.
  • Security: With data breaches costing millions, companies require developers to master security practices from day one. Not knowing the vulnerabilities listed by the OWASP Top 10 is a dealbreaker for premium remote roles.
  • DevOps and Cloud Culture: The modern Back-End developer must understand containerization (Docker), orchestration (Kubernetes), and cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure).

Golden Opportunities: Where is the Money?

For those who overcome these barriers, the market is a blue ocean of opportunities, especially for US/Global Remote work.

  • Migration to Microservices and Serverless: Corporate giants continue to dismantle legacy monoliths. Professionals who understand the patterns described by Martin Fowler are highly sought after.
  • High-Performance Languages: While traditional languages maintain their corporate strength, the use of Go (Golang) and Rust has skyrocketed for systems requiring massive concurrency and low memory footprint (Green Computing).
  • AI Infrastructure: AI models don't run in a vacuum. There is a massive demand for Back-End engineers proficient in Python and C++ to build data pipelines (MLOps) and the APIs that serve these models in real time.

Success Stories: Architectural Decisions That Changed the Game

True Back-End engineering shines when solving impossible problems. Let's look at real-market examples:

The Discord Case (Migration to Rust): Discord faced latency spikes in its core Read States service, originally written in Go. Because Go's Garbage Collector caused critical millisecond freezes, the team rewrote the service in Rust, completely eliminating latency spikes and supporting trillions of messages with absurd efficiency. This proved the value of choosing the right tool for performance limits.

The Netflix Case (Pioneering Microservices): Netflix transformed a monolithic system that broke under pressure into an architecture of thousands of independently managed microservices. They pioneered the concept of Chaos Engineering, purposely shutting down production servers to ensure their Back-End was resilient to failure.

Practical Tips: How to Land Premium Global Jobs

  1. Master the Fundamentals: Before learning the trendy framework of the month, study data structures, algorithms, and time complexity (Big-O Notation). This is exactly what will be tested in high-level technical interviews (Whiteboard interviews).
  2. Build a Problem-Focused Portfolio: A GitHub repository with a "To-Do List" won't impress anyone. Build an API that handles asynchronous image processing, create a scalable URL shortener, or engineer a messaging system using WebSockets and Redis.
  3. Study Real Cloud Architecture: Get solutions-based certifications (like AWS Certified Developer or Solutions Architect). These serve as a "Seal of Approval" to bypass strict Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) like Greenhouse or Ashby.
  4. Flawless Technical Communication: According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, the highest-paying roles require asynchronous global collaboration. Your code documentation, commit messages, and PR reviews must be pristine and professional.

Verdict: Is a Career in Back-End Worth It?

Absolutely. If you are an analytical person who loves solving complex puzzles and cares about the security and efficiency of things no one sees, the Back-End is your place.

It is a career virtually immune to visual fads. While Front-End libraries change every few years, the fundamentals of relational databases, networks, and operating systems remain the same. It is a rock-solid foundation for a highly lucrative and globalized career.