Tactile’s success is grounded in our growing community, which fosters your skills no matter what your discipline is, and one that gives you a place to be creative and impactful alongside talented colleagues. In the past years, Tactile has been growing both by developing new projects and reimagining old ones. We wanted to share an overview of our recruitment process and what we’re looking for in future Tactilers.
We are proud of being a lean organisation. This means that we have little hierarchy and work hard on nurturing an open and collaborative work environment in which each individual is encouraged to grow and develop. We do so by living and breathing our core values which emphasize trust, responsibility and mutual respect. When hiring new Tactilers, we want to make sure that we find the people who not only share these values, but who will also help to spread and cultivate them.
So, if you’re interested in a career at Tactile, we want to provide you with all the information you might need to be set up for success. In this blog post, we’ll cover the steps in our typical recruitment process, explain how we interview for attitude, and also share some tips to help you nail your interviews.
You can check out all of our current job openings via our Careers Page.
OUR RECRUITMENT PROCESS
Our Talent & Culture team has developed a standardized recruitment process across all studios, to ensure that everyone is considered and assessed in the same way.
This is what our standard recruitment process looks like. We sometimes tweak it for certain roles, but in general, this is what you can expect when you apply for a job at Tactile:
Meet your recruiter
Whether you have applied via our Careers page, or were approached by someone from Tactile, your candidate journey starts with an introductory chat. If we’re interested in learning more about your background and experience, one of our recruiters will reach out to you to set up a 30 minute informal video call.
What is covered in this step? Your experience relating to this role. We will also give you a general overview of Tactile, the role and the team you might potentially be joining. This stage primarily aims to ensure that there is good chemistry between us and that our expectations towards the role are aligned.
We have prepared a list of tips to help you prepare for the initial call with a recruiter.
Meet your future Team Lead
The initial call is usually (but not for all roles) followed up with an interview with your potential future team lead. This is usually a 30 to 60 minute video call.
What is covered in this step? – The aim of this conversation is for the team lead to share a little bit more technical information about the position and to dive further into your experience relating to this role. You can expect them to ask some attitudinal questions (we’ll talk more about what these are in a bit) and to answer any more technical questions which you might have around the role or the team.
Showcase your talent in a skills test
The next step in the process is assessing your skills, which are relevant to the job.
What is covered in this step? – Our test assignments differ from role to role, but they’re mainly take-home tests, which you can work on for a limited or unlimited amount of time, depending on the role you’re interviewing for. This is one of the most important steps in the process, because it gives you the opportunity to show off your skills in action but also to see what type of tasks might await if you were to accept the job.
We have prepared a list of tips to help you impress with your technical test.
Present and discuss your test results
If you do well on the skills assignment, you will be invited to meet with the team and have a technical discussion. We will send you a more detailed agenda before the interview, so that you can prepare. If you’re based in (or near) Copenhagen, we can have this interview on-site at our office on Vestergade 33.
What is covered in this step? – In the first part of the interview, you will discuss your test solutions and why you made certain decisions in it. In the second part, you will discuss the more technical aspects of the role and the projects or products that you’ll be working on as a part of this team.
We have prepared a list of tips to help you nail your technical interviews.
Meet your future team
The last step in your recruitment journey with Tactile will be meeting your potential future team.
What is covered in this step? – You can expect the interviewing team to assess whether your values, ambitions and ways of working align with how their team works at Tactile. And vice versa – this is an opportunity for you to see if there’s good chemistry between you and whether you see yourself working as a part of this team.
We have prepared a list of tips to help you prepare for the final team interview.
HOW WE INTERVIEW
At Tactile, we don’t only interview for skill, but also for attitude. What does this mean?
We follow an approach called structured interviewing. This means that when we interview for a position, we ask the same set of predetermined questions to every candidate. We use this approach because it helps us minimize biases and it also ensures that every candidate gets assessed in the same way.
During an interview at Tactile, you will be asked technical questions relating to your skills and knowledge, which are required for the role. Besides this, you can also expect to be asked some attitudinal questions. These questions help us to determine whether you are also a fit with our culture and values.
We use these questions to ask about your past behaviours and attitudes in very specific situations (i.e. when you had to fix a bug in production). Besides technical situations, be prepared to answer questions about how you worked as a part of a team (i.e. how you gave feedback to a colleague).
These questions typically start with one of the following openers:
- “Could you tell about a time when …”
- “Could you describe a situation where …”
- “Could you give an example of …”
We believe that asking about past behaviours is more valuable than asking about hypothetical situations and a much better indicator of how someone is likely to behave again in the future.
We of course understand that coming up with examples from your past is not always easy and takes some thinking power. Our interviewers are trained to help you with answering these questions – to give you space to think about your answers and to support you with some follow-up questions, in case you get stuck. The overall aim is to get to know you better!
COME GROW WITH US
Take a look at our Careers page to see our current job openings. This is also the fastest way to submit your application and get in touch with our recruitment team.
You can find lots of relevant material, articles, employee spotlights and other content to help you prepare for your recruitment journey on our LinkedIn page.
We’re looking forward to meeting you! 👋
At Tactile, we are committed to building high-quality mobile games and we firmly believe that good coding practices play a crucial role in achieving that goal. We follow a set of principles and guidelines that help us write efficient, maintainable, and error-free™ code that meets the needs of our users and stakeholders.
So who better to talk to about this than one of our superstar Backend Engineers, Felipe Fernández. Felipe joined Tactile 3 years ago and is now the Lead Backend Engineer for the part of our Core team that is supporting Marketing & Data operations.
The Core team at Tactile is responsible for building different tools, platforms and systems which are used by our internal teams to manage both our games and marketing operations. These tools are very complex, technical and heavily integrated into our LiveOps and Marketing platforms, and are therefore crucial for the day-to-day game development work.
Here’s an overview of the coding practices our developers follow in their day-to-day to help us achieve our goal of building high-quality mobile games:
“Before software can be reusable, it first has to be usable.”
– Ralph Johnson
SOLID principles
One of the key good practices we follow at Tactile is the SOLID principles. SOLID stands for Single Responsibility Principle, Open-Closed Principle, Liskov Substitution Principle, Interface Segregation Principle, and Dependency Inversion Principle. These principles help to ensure that our code is well-structured, easy to understand, and easy to maintain. By following SOLID principles, our developers can write code that is flexible, adaptable, and easy to change as requirements evolve. This allows us to create code that is easy to understand and maintain, even as our games evolve and grow over time.
“Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding.“
– Burt Rutan
Unit testing
Another good practice we follow at Tactile is unit testing. Unit testing is a technique that allows us to test individual units of code in isolation, without relying on other parts of the system. This helps to ensure that our code is working correctly and that bugs are caught early on. By writing automated unit tests, our developers can quickly and easily verify that their code is working as intended, and can make changes with confidence. This helps us to ensure that our mobile games are of the highest quality and that they meet the needs of our users.
“Fix the cause, not the symptom.”
– Steve Maguire
Dependency Injection and Domain-Driven Design
We also follow the principles of Dependency Injection and Domain-Driven Design. Dependency Injection helps us to create loosely coupled code that is easy to test and maintain. This is a technique that allows us to write code that is not tightly dependent on other code, which makes it more flexible and easier to change. Domain-Driven Design, on the other hand, is a set of principles and patterns that help us to model our code based on the domain of the problem we are trying to solve. This helps us to create code that is easy to understand, maintain, and evolve over time.
“If knowledge is a power, then learning is a superpower.”
– Jim Kwik
Growth
At Tactile, we also invest into our developers’ ability to grow and develop their professional skills. We do this continuously, by running an internal book club, where we read relevant books, such as “Clean Code”, “The Art of Unit Testing”, “Dependency Injection” and “Domain-Driven Design”, which we then discuss a group. Discussions are encouraged to challenge current best practices at Tactile as a means for us to develop as a group and as a company. Additionally, developers are encouraged to go to relevant conferences and meet ups, to seek fresh ideas and knowledge from the world around us.
“The most damaging phrase in the language is.. it’s always been done this way.“
– Grace Hopper
Teamwork
Lastly, we believe in open communication and teamwork. Our developers work closely with each other, and with other members of the team, to share ideas, collaborate on projects, and to ensure that everyone’s needs and concerns are heard. This helps to ensure that our developers feel supported and valued, and that our mobile games meet the needs of all stakeholders.
If you are a talented developer who is passionate about good coding practices and committed to building high-quality mobile games, we would love to hear from you. Tactile is always looking for talented candidates who share our commitment to excellence and our passion for mobile gaming. Apply now to join our team and help us build the future of mobile gaming.
Time for talent with Roche Ng
Meet Roche Ng, one of our amazing female engineers, working as a part of our Game Content Tools team. Read more about her story below & don’t miss out on her advice for those aspiring to work in game programming!
Tactile: Hi Roche, could you tell us a bit about what you do at Tactile?
Roche: Sure! I’m a proud member of the Content Tools team, and our main goal is to make life easier for our fellow creators. We create digital tools that simplify tasks like content creation, organization, sharing, and analysis. For example, we’ve developed a flowchart importer that takes the hassle out of moving flowcharts into Unity (see the screenshot below). We also have our very own custom map editor, which streamlines the content creation process.
Tactile: What was your journey to becoming a Game Programmer?
Roche: I’ve always been fascinated by the magic behind creating video games, and that curiosity drew me into the world of programming. As I wrapped up my bachelor’s in computer science, it became clear that my heart was set on specializing in game development. So, I pursued a master’s degree in this field and now I get to bring my passion to life every day!
Tactile: What do you like the most about the team you’re working with?
Roche: We are a very small team, but I appreciate each member very much. My teammates are very talented at what they do. They are good people who always inspire me to do better and aim for improvement. Plus, we get to work with different projects instead of only one, and I think that’s fantastic!
Tactile: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Roche: We spend a lot of time fine-tuning tools tailored to the specific needs of different teams within the organization, so the real joy for me comes from witnessing these tools in action. It’s like being part of an inventive process where our solutions are not just wanted but eagerly requested by various teams. This sense of being creators and problem-solvers makes our work truly rewarding!
Tactile: What are your top tips for those (especially other women) aspiring to pursue a career in game programming?
Roche:
✨ Learn and PRACTICE: Gaining a strong foundation in programming concepts is important, but nothing beats practice. Dedicate time to practicing and honing your coding skills.
✨ Build a Portfolio: Create your own game projects, contribute to open-source game development efforts, participate on game jams! Building a portfolio of your work not only showcases your skills but also demonstrates your commitment to potential employers.
✨ Network and Connect: It’s not always easy to land your first job, or even your first internship. This is why networking is invaluable. Consider attending game development conferences, workshops, and meet-ups in order to connect with like-minded professionals, learn from others in the industry, and discover job opportunities.
✨ Believe in Yourself: Lastly, believe in your abilities and the value you bring to the industry. Your unique perspective and creativity can contribute to the creation of amazing games. Game development can be challenging, but don’t be discouraged by obstacles or setbacks. Keep pushing forward and continue learning.