$183.6k - $297k
Our MissionAt Palo Alto Networks, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and…
Engineering & IT · San Jose, CA
Game Developer jobs in San Jose, CA
Game developers build interactive experiences in engines like Unity and Unreal — writing gameplay systems, optimizing performance, and collaborating with artists and designers to ship playable worlds.
593
Open roles today
$40–$110/hr
Typical pay range
$147k
Median, full-time
12
Fresh in this list
No email, no resume, no sign-up. Save any listing below and you start anonymously.
You're signed in. Saving a listing drops it straight into your pipeline.
01
Open game developer roles
12 shown of 593 · sorted by freshness
and proof-of-concept activities.Assist customers during critical silicon bring-up, production ramps, and new technology deployments. Develop application examples, best practices, documentation, and reusable customer work…
$165.6k - $227.7k
and on LinkedIn and X.Role Overview The Enterprise AI Platform team is building the foundational services, APIs, frameworks, and developer tooling that power AI agents, copilots, enterprise search, workflow automation, a…
$97.8k - $143.47k
across logic and memory chips, specialty semiconductors, wafers, reticles, advanced packaging, process equipment and materials. We also develop technologies for specialty processes, IC substrates, and PCB manufacturing,…
obsession for security. As part of the role, the Principal Engineer will work closely with other security and firmware engineers, developers and architects across various IPs in leading the designs and implementing secur…
Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make com…
$156.4k - $253k
firewalls. Any features that require the inspection or extraction of layer-7 network payload depends on our engine. We are also developing the latest Cloud-delivered Layer-7 security infrastructure. We design and develop…
$184k - $287.5k
NVIDIA has been transforming computer graphics, PC gaming, and accelerated computing for more than 25 years. It’s a unique legacy of... ...and software SDKs.Collaborate with various teams to craft and develop system-leve…
$163.53k - $224.85k
evaluation, design-in, bring-up, qualification, and production readiness for ADI datacenter products, including the IVR (Empower) portfolio. Develop and maintain design collateral—including specifications, simulation mod…
$176.5k - $262.35k
Engineers dedicated to innovation. The Platform Enablement and Quality team within AITech builds the foundational infrastructure, developer tooling, and quality frameworks that power PayPal's AI/ML platform at scale. We…
$174k - $252k
Develop Linux kernel drivers to enable new universal serial bus (USB)-connected XR devices and lead hardware bring-up for novel custom silicon.Research scalable USB software architectures, influence SoC architecture, and…
$150.98k - $218.62k
Responsibilities / Essential Functions:The position will be responsible for supporting ADI IVR (Empower) portfolio during the final product developments to customer design in. The role of an Applications Engineer (AE) is…
02
What game developers earn in San Jose
Hourly first — that's how the offer arrives
| Experience | Hourly | Annual, full-time |
|---|---|---|
| Entry level | $40–$58 | $83k–$121k |
| Mid level | $58–$83 | $121k–$172k |
| Senior | $80–$110 | $166k–$228k |
Adjusted for the San Jose market from national ranges.
03
What employers ask for
The skills these listings keep naming
Unity (C#) or Unreal (C++)Gameplay programming3D math (vectors, matrices)Performance profilingPhysics and animation systemsMultiplayer networking (a plus)Shaders and graphics basicsCollaboration with art and designIterating from playtest feedback
04
Interview questions worth rehearsing
With the thing the interviewer is actually listening for
Walk me through a gameplay system you built — movement, combat, inventory, anything.
Explain the architecture and how it survived design changes. Games iterate constantly, so flexible systems are the real skill being probed.
Your frame rate dropped below target. How do you find the cause?
Profile first — CPU versus GPU — then narrow to draw calls, scripts, physics, or garbage collection. Naming the actual profiler tools you use makes it credible.
Explain the difference between Update and FixedUpdate (or tick contexts in your engine).
Frame-dependent versus fixed-timestep logic, and why physics belongs in the fixed step. A quick example of a bug caused by mixing them up is a nice touch.
How do you handle a designer requesting a change that breaks your architecture?
Show that you serve the game: understand the intent, propose alternatives, and refactor when the design direction is real. Rigidity is a bigger flag than rework.
What would you consider when adding multiplayer to a single-player game?
Authority, state synchronization, latency compensation, and the honest answer that retrofitting networking is expensive. Scoping realism is the point.
Tell me about a game you shipped or finished — even a small one.
Finished matters more than ambitious. Talk about the last 20 percent: polish, bugs, cuts you made to actually release.
How do you use object pooling, and why?
Reusing objects to avoid allocation and garbage-collection spikes — bullets and effects are the classic case. Tie it to a frame-time problem you solved.
05
Resume tips that move the needle
For game developers specifically — generic advice costs you here
01
Link playable work — shipped titles, itch.io projects, or a portfolio reel; in games, the work is the resume.
02
Specify your engine and language depth (Unity/C#, Unreal/C++) and your specialty: gameplay, graphics, tools, or networking.
03
Name your specific contributions on team titles — 'built the save system and enemy AI' beats a credit line.
04
Include game jams and finished small projects; they prove you can complete things, which studios weight heavily.
05
Show performance work with numbers, such as frame-rate targets hit on specific hardware.
06
Where this role goes
Typical progression
01
Junior Game Developer
02
Game Developer
03
Senior Game Developer
04
Lead Programmer
05
Technical Director
Ten quiet minutes a day
Applying for game developer jobs in San Jose?
Robbi carries this page into your first day: your role, your city, your shift preference. Then it hands you a few small things each morning and keeps the pipeline honest.
Save what looks right here, then let Robbi hand you a few small things each morning and keep the follow-ups honest.
Start with this search
No email, no resume, no sign-up.
Open your tracker
Everything you saved is already there.