Software Engineer (Retail Demo)

Nex is on a mission to help families rediscover the joy of movement. Created by parents for parents, Nex combines technology and play to deliver fun, social, and interactive experiences powered by natural body motion, encouraging kids and adults to move more, play more, and have fun together. Nex Playground, the company’s award-winning active play system, is purpose-built to get families moving year-round, with safety and privacy as core considerations in its intentional design. It is certified kidSAFE+ COPPA compliant and built to support healthy, active play for all ages and abilities.

Nex Playground features a growing library of 50+ experiences, including motion and dance games, fitness and educational experiences, and Nex Originals. Content includes collaborations with partners like Hasbro, Sesame Workshop, and NBCUniversal. Nex has been recognized by Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, TIME’s Best Inventions, and Parents’ Best Entertainment System for Families, and has earned Red Dot, IDEA, and Core77 international design awards. We encourage you to explore Have Fun and Is Motion Gaming Back?, as they offer a deeper look into our culture, values, and explain how our approach to motion gaming differs from previous generations.

To protect yourself from recruitment scams, please note that Nex communicates through official company emails ending in @nex.inc. If you receive a suspicious email or message, please do not respond and report it immediately to us.

Reports to: Head of Developer Experience
Location: Hong Kong
Travel: (Rarely) International travel to the EU, Japan or the US
Time Zones: Will collaborate across time zones with clearly defined overlap windows.
Type: 6-month contract (with the possibility to convert or renew)

The Role

Nex Playground is redefining how families play — bringing motion-based, camera-powered gaming into the living room. A key part of our go-to-market motion is the in-store retail demo experience, where customers at retailers like Target, Costco, and Walmart get hands-on with Nex Playground games before they buy.

We are looking for a Software Engineer (Retail Demo) to innovate and iterate on the overall end-to-end retail demo experience. It involves a dedicated motion-base activation / launcher, showing our users what our technologies can do and how fun it is.

You will be working with a focus team to maintain the software involved. We will also be doing regular updates to showcase our latest games and events.

What You'll Do

• Innovate and iterate on our motion based retail demo launcher — It will be the first touch point our potential customers interact with at the retail store.
• Maintain customizations per region — Including localization, age rating and other legal compliances specific to the country / region.
• Performance tuning and optimization — Ensure that our software run smoothly.
• Maintain integration library that allow other games to integrate with retail demo — Implement common lifecycle event handling to stitch experience together.
• Work with our publishing to handle periodic content update / refresh — Including integration with various CMS systems to fetch the latest information.
• Work closely with QA — Ensure the whole retail demo experience is robust and stable.

Must Have

• Hands-on experience with Unity game development.
• 3+ years of software development experience.
• Experience working with software involving multiple components / systems.
• Fierce empathy for our users and potential customers.

Should Have

• An obsession with code and product quality.
• Experience with tooling and automation.
• A growth mindset, always looking for more.
• Excitement about working in a high-growth, fast-paced environment.

Nice to Have

• Prior experience working with retailers or location base activations.
• A love for staying active and healthy, with a passion for helping others do the same.

We Offer

• Competitive compensation package.
• Flexible working hours and vacation policy.
• Product-driven culture that treasures talents and individual growth.
• Front-row seat and hands-on experience with cutting edge technologies in the evolving gaming field

Nex is located in San Jose, California, USA and Hong Kong. Learn more about us at https://www.nexplayground.com/about. 

We encourage applications even if you don’t meet more than 50% of the requirements — we believe that experience comes in many forms!

Nex is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. This policy applies to all individuals at every stage of the employment relationship, including all current and prospective employees, and covers all employment decisions including recruitment, hiring, job assignment, promotion, compensation, benefits, training, discipline and termination.

We are committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and harassment and to fostering an inclusive environment for all employees.