Technical Artist (Contract)

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. Location: Hong Kong Type: Full Time Contractor, with the possibility to extend or convert Reports to: UX/UI Design Manager The Role We’re looking for a highly meticulous UI Technical Artist who bridges the gap between UI/UX design and Unity implementation, with an uncompromising commitment to visual precision. In this role, you’ll bring user interfaces to life through flawless technical setup, UI motion design, and polished micro-interactions. We need a candidate who truly aims for pixel-perfect fidelity. Someone who cares deeply about aligning margins, font rendering, anchoring, and visual feedback down to the exact pixel, while maintaining a strong animation sense and high visual polish. What You'll Do • Pixel-Perfect UI Implementation in Unity: Translate 2D design layouts into Unity UI with relentless accuracy, ensuring exact spacing, scale, typography, and responsiveness across varying resolutions. • UI Motion & Animation Design: Design, animate, and fine-tune UI transitions, dynamic menus, and micro-interactions using Unity Timeline, Animator, Spine 2D, or tweening packages, with a sharp eye for weight, timing, and easing. • Visual Feedback: Elevate the player experience by crafting crisp visual feedback using lightweight shaders (Shader Graph), UI particle systems, and subtle motion effects that feel satisfying and responsive. • Precision Asset Management & Optimization: Set up dynamic anchoring, Sprite Atlases, text rendering (TextMeshPro), and UI prefabs to maintain visual perfection without compromising game performance or draw call limits. • Design & Engineering Alignment: Serve as the visual quality gatekeeper by collaborating closely with UI/UX designers to honor their visual vision and working with engineers to tie UI elements into game logic seamlessly. • Maintain High UI Standards: Establish robust, scalable UI structures, prefabs, and workflow guidelines that ensure consistency and visual rigor across our entire game portfolio. What We're Looking For • Uncompromising Eye for Precision: A relentless commitment to pixel perfection, sharp detail, and visual accuracy when translating static or prototype designs into live, in-engine UI. • Solid Unity UI Implementation Skills: Proven hands-on experience building, structuring, and optimizing UI Canvas setups in Unity. • Strong Animation & Motion Sense: Deep understanding of timing, curve dynamics, and movement principles tailored specifically to menu transitions, UI states, and player feedback. • Technical UI Asset Knowledge: Expertise in preparing UI assets, slice/9-grid setups, Sprite Atlases, TextMeshPro configurations, and clean prefab architecture. • UI FX Capabilities: Practical experience creating UI feedback effects using particle systems, shaders (Shader Graph), or vector-based UI techniques. Nice to Have • Basic scripting knowledge in C# to trigger UI animations or prototype layout behavior independently. 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.