It’s Time for Talent – with Kristián Kovalský
Hello, my name is Kristián and I joined Tactile in June 2024. As a QA Engineer on the Core team I am responsible for two main areas: first, our internal tools such as the LiveOps Dashboard that we use to run A/B tests, set up special events, handle user support tickets and much more. Second, I am also testing the packages that our Client team provides for our games, checking the purchase flows or profile synchronisations through platforms like Google and Apple.
🚀 Before Tactile
Video games very quickly became my favourite pastime growing up, however buying games was not really a thing where I come from, so I had to start honing my computer skills from very early on to be able to play the new Need for Speed or connect to a private World of Warcraft server.
I moved to Denmark in 2015 to do my Bachelor and then Master’s degree in Medialogy, and graduated in 2020. My path to Tactile was varied: I was never really sure what exactly I want to do, but I have always enjoyed figuring out what things do, pushing all the buttons, taking things apart and learning how they work, and I also love organising things and making sure there is order. After school I took a Full Stack Developer position for a small start-up, where I quickly became the “tech team” as the only in-house developer. I quickly had to get comfortable with front and backend WordPress development while also communicating directly with the founders.
The opportunity to work for Tactile came at the right time: I felt like I was ready for a career change, and I had already been toying with the idea of working for a gaming company. Games have been a big part of my life, from learning how to speak English to making friends and creating real connections, so getting to be part of building those experiences for others feels right for me.
💜 Joining Tactile
It’s been pretty much what everyone hears about working in a fun, cool gaming company. There’s a lot of like-minded people, so it was easy to get along with everyone from the beginning, and the culture is very open and welcoming: in my first month at Tactile, I attended a colleague’s wedding, a summer party and ate cake on an almost-daily basis. Onboarding was super easy as well, the documentation I received on day 1 was a great starting point, and there was also a lot of space from the get-go to ask all the questions.
Since joining Tactile I also took on the role of Scrum Master, which was completely new to me but was also very intriguing. I am very much enjoying the opportunities for stakeholder management and cross-department collaboration that this side of my role brings.
💪 Having an impact
Every day brings a new set of challenges: there are new releases on the LiveOps dashboard daily, the Build Server is crucial because without it there would be no game releases, and ensuring that our players get a good experience is always a top priority.
Because my work is split between testing out internal tools and dashboards, and also certain in-game flows that our players go through, I have to change the way I approach each task to make sure that I put myself in the right end user’s shoes. Apart from testing the “happy path”, which is the ideal user journey, my job is also to come up with, test and document all sorts of different edge cases that can occur. It is equally as important that our LiveOps Managers can schedule special events without hiccups, as it is to make sure that these events are then delivered to the hundreds of thousands of players across our games.
📚 The keys to success
💡 Thinking outside of the box to come up with all the unique way of how people use their phones and how they play games.
💬 Communicating clearly with developers and stakeholders in different teams.
😉 Not being afraid to look dumb when asking developers to explain how something works.
A big thank you to Kristián for sharing his story🙌 We are so happy to have you on the team!
At Tactile, we encourage people to explore new ideas, develop new skills, and shape their own career paths. Sometimes that means growing deeper within your discipline, and sometimes it means discovering an entirely new one.
Rufo joined Tactile in 2021 as a Junior 3D Artist. Four years later, he’s helping shape the future of game art as a Technical Artist with a focus on AI, building tools, streamlining workflows, and empowering artists with new technologies.
We sat down with Rufo to talk about his journey, what sparked his interest in AI, and why he believes technology should help artists create even more, not less.
Tactile: Hi Rufo, Can you tell us a bit about what your role was when you first joined Tactile?
Rufo: I started out as a junior 3D artist here at Tactile back in 2021. The first project I ever worked on was Makeover Match, where I modelled and textured props for the different environments in the game. Not long after, I expanded into creating assets and shaders for various in-game cinematics and marketing videos.
Tactile: How has your journey at Tactile evolved since then?
Rufo: I’ve always been curious about technology, so I’ve made it a habit to stay on top of the cutting edge and the possibilities it brings to our medium. That curiosity, paired with a tendency to need to shift my focus to something else quite regularly (arguably to a fault!😂), has given me a pretty big opportunity to evolve.
Tactile is a goldmine of knowledge if you make an effort to learn from your coworkers. I’ve gained so much valuable experience from so many people at the office, and I hope people have learned at least a bit from me as well.
Tactile: What inspired you to transition from 3D Artist to Technical Artist with a focus on AI?
Rufo: While curiosity and ambition played a big role, I would say it mostly happened organically. 3D art comes with its fair share of technical challenges, and being exposed to these led me down the rabbit hole that landed me where I am today. For starters, 3D is a great medium to learn to think outside the box since so much of it boils down to problem-solving. That foundation gave me the confidence to dive into deeper technical territories—like exploring generative AI for art production and developing custom tools for pipeline automation.
Tactile: What does your role look like today?
Rufo: Codex and Claude have been real game-changers for my work, and I’ve already seen a few artists here at Tactile develop their own tools despite “vibe-coding” sounding intimidating at first. My job is also quite collaborative. Communication with others is essential, in fact. I rely on them for valuable feedback or even development assistance.
There’s an immeasurable amount of technical hurdles for artists and there’ll probably always be something to improve or solve.
Tactile: How do you collaborate with artists, engineers, and other teams to bring AI into your workflows?
Rufo: It usually starts with isolating a specific problem or idea, followed by a cycle of prototyping and refinement until it’s ready to share. Once the team gets their hands on it, the feedback loop begins, allowing me to tailor the solution to their exact production challenges. At the end of the day, my job is to facilitate production and make artists’ lives easier—not to enforce new workflows just for the sake of using new technology.
Tactile: Looking ahead, what excites you the most about the future of AI in game development?
Rufo: Now that the initial “AI-hype” smoke has somewhat settled, and we’ve arrived at a point where AI has become controllable enough for artists to truly leverage them. That usually means cutting down hours of tedious tasks, turning days of processing into minutes, and iterating on concepts rapidly while fully retaining our artistic vision.
At the moment I’m very excited about the democratisation of software development and its possibilities. Just as someone who has had no previous experience in art creation will put out a worse product than a seasoned artist, even with AI in their toolset, the same applies to software development. The barrier to entry has dropped so significantly that anyone can now build things that were previously unimaginable.
AI is here to stay. That’s a matter of fact. So then, our focus should be to empower artists rather than to lessen their creative input. They are, after all, one of the most important backbones of a well-crafted video game.
Thank you for the interesting chat, Rufo 💜
It’s Time for Talent – with Selin Azak
Hi, my name is Selin , it’s nice to virtually meet you! 👋
I joined Tactile in January 2026 as a Product & Publishing Manager. In my role, I work closely with external studios and internal teams, acting as a bridge from early ideation to live operations. A key part of my role is building Tactile’s publishing arm from the ground up, defining how we work with partners and setting up the overall structure. Alongside this, I support teams in building, validating, and scaling puzzle games with strong market potential.
🚀 Before Tactile
Before joining Tactile, I spent over 6 years in the mobile games industry, mainly focusing on casual, hybrid-casual, and puzzle games.
Most recently, I worked as a Publishing Manager, collaborating with multiple studios on ideation, prototyping, and scaling games. Before that, I was a Product Manager, where I gained hands-on experience across product strategy and game development processes.
Throughout my career, I’ve worked on more than 20 games, with a strong focus on early-stage validation, CPI-driven testing, and achieving product-market fit.
💜 Joining Tactile
Since joining Tactile, it has been both exciting and challenging in the best ways. There is a strong opportunity to shape how we collaborate with external studios and build new products from the ground up, while also setting the right processes and aligning multiple stakeholders.
What stands out most is the collaborative culture and the level of trust, which creates a great environment to take ownership and drive impact.
💪 Having an impact
Our team focuses on discovering and developing new game opportunities, especially in the puzzle space. We work closely with studios to identify strong concepts, validate them through testing, and evolve them into scalable products.
The most rewarding part of my work is seeing an idea evolve from a simple concept into something players genuinely enjoy. At Tactile, I have the opportunity to influence both product and publishing decisions end-to-end, which makes the work both challenging and highly motivating.
📚 The keys to success
For anyone looking to enter the industry, my main advice would be to approach games with a product mindset. Don’t just play them, analyze them. Try to understand why decisions are made and how they impact player experience and performance.
At the same time, connecting with people in the industry and learning from different perspectives can significantly accelerate your growth.
Most importantly, test your ideas. In today’s market, data is key, and meaningful insights come from continuous experimentation and iteration.
An extra thought…
The mobile games industry moves fast and is highly competitive, but that is also what makes it exciting. If you enjoy solving problems, working creatively, and seeing direct impact from your decisions, it is an incredibly rewarding space to be in.