How 8Bit Works: Our Approach to Games Recruitment

We’re a recruitment agency working exclusively in games. What differs is not the category but the order of priorities: we treat the developers we place as the people we serve, not the product we sell. Here’s what that means in practice, and what it should mean for you.

Where We Came From

8Bit – Games Industry Recruitment concept began with our founder and CEO, Monika Michalak, and a fairly specific frustration: that recruitment could be done in a way that treated both sides of a placement as people rather than as inventory and budget.

She didn’t set out to run an agency in the conventional sense. The intention was to build working relationships with studios and developers that could survive more than one transaction, and that required something recruitment doesn’t always earn: trust from both directions at once.

That founding principle became the culture, and it’s still what the team is built around. Everything below is a consequence of it.

What We Actually Do Differently

Every agency says it’s different, which makes the claim worthless on its own. So here are the specific, checkable things, and you’re welcome to hold us to any of them.

We send short shortlists

We don’t forward large volumes of candidates. A studio receiving forty CVs hasn’t been helped; it’s been given work. We send the people we believe genuinely fit, and if that’s three people, it’s three people.

This costs us something. A high-volume approach places more people with less effort per placement. We think it produces worse hires and wastes everyone’s time, including ours.

We don’t contact developers about roles that don’t suit them

Passive candidates, meaning developers who aren’t actively looking, are most of the talent in this industry and the hardest to reach well. The way to reach them badly is to message everyone about everything.

Our commitment is narrower and more useful: if we contact you about a role, it’s because we think it’s genuinely relevant to you. That’s the basis on which developers keep answering us, and it’s an asset we’d rather not spend.

We tell studios things they’d rather not hear

This is probably the most practically valuable thing we offer, and it follows directly from working on both sides.

If an offer sits below what the market is paying for that role in that region, we say so, with data, so it can be reconsidered before it costs a hire. If a step in an interview process is losing strong candidates, we say that too. If a role as written will not attract the person the studio is imagining, we’d rather have that conversation at the brief stage than three months into a failed search.

Our first-party salary research, the Gamedev Salary Pulse, exists partly to make those conversations evidence-based rather than a matter of opinion.

We give candidates real feedback

Developers in our processes get told where they stand. If a screening call surfaces a strong skill that isn’t visible on a CV or LinkedIn profile, we’ll say so, because that’s costing them opportunities we have nothing to do with. If an application has a fixable weakness, we’ll name it.

We also aim to close the loop with everyone we’ve actively engaged in a process. Not every unsolicited application to every role, which no agency can honestly promise at volume, but if we’ve spoken to you about a role, you’ll hear back from us.

We share what we’re allowed to share

We pass on as much information about a role as the studio gives us, so a developer can make a real decision about whether a screening call is worth their time. If we can’t answer something, we’ll say it’s confidential rather than talk around it.

How We Work With Studios

A few practical points about what an engagement looks like from the client side.

We work as an extension of your team, not at arm’s length. That usually means a shared channel rather than formal email threads, so questions get answered the same day and candidate feedback moves quickly. Speed of feedback is one of the most reliable predictors of whether a strong candidate stays in a process.

We keep the point of contact small. You should know who you’re dealing with and not be managing a rotating cast. Fewer people, closer to the work.

We work across the whole industry. PC and console, mobile, VR and AR, AAA and indie. That range is deliberate: it’s what keeps our market intelligence current rather than narrow, and it means the comparison we give you is drawn from more than one corner of the industry.

We offer more than one commercial model. Success fee, retained search, subscription, and RPO all suit different hiring patterns, and the right one depends on how much you’re hiring and over what period. We’d rather put you on the model that fits than the one that pays us most on a single transaction. Our guide to cost-effective recruitment models sets out the differences.

How We Work With Developers

If you’re a game developer, here’s what you should expect from us, and what you’re entitled to ask for.

Context before a call. You should know which studio, which project type where possible, what the role actually involves, and the salary range before deciding whether to spend half an hour on a screening call. If we haven’t told you, ask. In situations where confidentiality clause applies, we will be frank about it and tell you as much as possible.

A conversation, not an interrogation. Screening calls should be a genuine exchange. We want to understand what you’re looking for, not just verify a checklist, because a role you accept reluctantly serves nobody.

An alternative if the first role doesn’t fit. If it becomes clear during a call that the role we approached you about isn’t right, but something else might be, we’ll say so rather than push the one we opened with.

Honest career input. Including when the honest input is that you shouldn’t take the job, or that the thing holding you back is how you’re presenting your experience rather than the experience itself.

A reply, once we’re actually talking. This one needs an honest caveat. The games job market is extremely tight right now, and the volume of applications we receive is enormous, a large share of it for roles the applicant doesn’t match in any meaningful way. We can’t promise a personal response to every application that arrives.

What we do commit to is this: once you’re in a conversation with us, whether that’s a screening call, a submission to a studio, or an ongoing process, you will hear the outcome. You won’t be left wondering. The silence people rightly complain about in this industry happens after engagement, and that’s the part we hold ourselves to.

Games Recruitment and the Wider Scope at 8Bit

Games is what we know and where the overwhelming majority of our work sits. That specialisation is the point: it’s what gives us the networks, the salary data, and the ability to tell a gameplay programmer from a graphics programmer without reading a glossary.

Since the boundary isn’t absolute, we do occasionally work outside games where the skill sets genuinely overlap. A backend engineer, a DevOps specialist, a data engineer, is recognisably the same kind of hire whether the product is a game or another piece of software, and our network reaches those people either way. Where a role sits close enough to what we know well, we’re happy to take it on. Where it doesn’t, we’ll say so rather than take the brief and learn on your budget.

On engagement types, we’ve historically focused on permanent hires, but the market has changed and we’ve adapted accordingly. If your need is contract, temporary, or project-based rather than permanent, it’s worth a conversation.

The clearer limit is this: we’re not the right fix for hiring that isn’t actually blocked by finding people. If a search has stalled because the salary band has fallen behind the market, or because an interview process is losing candidates faster than we can add them, no amount of sourcing will solve it. In that situation the useful thing we can do is tell you what the real problem is, which we will.

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Common Questions

What does 8Bit do?

We’re a recruitment agency working exclusively in game development, founded in 2015. We help studios hire permanent staff across engineering, art and animation, design, production, QA, audio, and business functions, and we help game developers find roles that genuinely suit them. We offer several commercial models, including success fee, retained search, subscription, and RPO.

Does 8Bit charge candidates anything?

No. In legitimate recruitment the hiring company pays the fees, never the candidate. If any agency asks you to pay to secure a job offer, treat it as a serious warning sign and check the legality under your local laws.

Why does 8Bit say it puts candidates first if studios pay the fees?

Because the two interests align more than they appear to. A placement that doesn’t suit the person doesn’t last, and a studio then pays for the search twice. Being straight with developers about whether a role fits them protects the studio’s investment. It also preserves the thing that makes us useful: developers answer us because we haven’t wasted their time, and that access is what reaches senior and passive candidates.

How many candidates will 8Bit send for a role?

As few as the role needs. We don’t forward large volumes, because a long list transfers work to you rather than removing it. If we believe three people genuinely fit, you get three.

Will 8Bit tell us if our offer is uncompetitive?

Yes, and with data rather than opinion. If a salary sits below what the market pays for that role and region, or a step in your process is losing strong candidates, we’ll raise it. Our first-party salary research, the Gamedev Salary Pulse, exists partly to make those conversations evidence-based.

What kinds of studios does 8Bit work with?

Studios across the whole industry: PC and console, mobile, VR and AR, AAA and indie. Working across that range keeps our market intelligence current rather than narrow, which is what makes the benchmarking we give clients useful.

Does 8Bit only work on games roles?

Mostly, and that specialisation is deliberate. But we do work outside games where the skill sets genuinely overlap, such as backend, DevOps, data, and technical art roles, which are recognisably the same hire whether the product is a game or other software. Where a role sits close to what we know well, it’s worth asking. Where it doesn’t, we’ll tell you rather than take the brief and learn on your budget.

Does 8Bit handle contract or project-based hiring?

It’s worth asking. Our focus has historically been permanent hires, because those are the appointments that shape a studio. But the market has shifted considerably toward contract and project-based staffing, and we’ve adapted with it. If your need is contract, temporary, or project-based, start a conversation rather than assuming we only do permanent.

Will 8Bit reply to my application?

If we’re in a conversation with you, yes. You’ll hear the outcome rather than being left in silence. We can’t promise an individual reply to every inbound application, because the current games market produces an enormous volume of them and a large share are for roles the applicant doesn’t match. Once you’re engaged in a process with us, though, you will hear back.