... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
... serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game. You do ...
Success in this role requires serious creativity and tinkering skills, an approach to development ... That impact starts with a kernel of an idea -- a mini golf game with paint-stirrer walls, a secret ...
Quick apply
Success in this role requires serious creativity and tinkering skills, an approach to development ... That impact starts with a kernel of an idea -- a mini golf game with paint-stirrer walls, a secret ...
Success in this role requires serious creativity and tinkering skills, an approach to development ... That impact starts with a kernel of an idea - a mini golf game with paint-stirrer walls, a secret ...
Success in this role requires serious creativity and tinkering skills, an approach to development ... That impact starts with a kernel of an idea - a mini golf game with paint-stirrer walls, a secret ...
Success in this role requires serious creativity and tinkering skills, an approach to development ... That impact starts with a kernel of an idea - a mini golf game with paint-stirrer walls, a secret ...
Success in this role requires serious creativity and tinkering skills, an approach to development ... That impact starts with a kernel of an idea - a mini golf game with paint-stirrer walls, a secret ...
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
... Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly employees accrue 35 days annually for paid time off to be used for vacation, holidays, and sick paid time off.
Software Engineer 4
Los Gatos, CA · On-site +1
... and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume ... and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly ...
Software Engineer 4
Los Gatos, CA · On-site +1
... and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume ... and Serious Injury Benefits. We also offer paid leave of absence programs. Full-time hourly ...
Serious Game Developer information
See California salary details
$32.1K - $45.3K
3% of jobs
$45.3K - $58.5K
10% of jobs
$58.5K - $71.8K
8% of jobs
$78K is the 25th percentile. Wages below this are outliers.
$71.8K - $85K
10% of jobs
$85K - $98.2K
16% of jobs
The median wage is $100.7K / yr.
$98.2K - $111.5K
20% of jobs
$118.3K is the 75th percentile. Wages above this are outliers.
$111.5K - $124.7K
16% of jobs
$124.7K - $137.9K
0% of jobs
$137.9K - $151.2K
1% of jobs
$151.2K - $164.4K
5% of jobs
$164.4K - $177.6K
11% of jobs
$32.1K
$107K
$177.6K
How much do serious game developer jobs pay per year?
As of Sep 8, 2026, the average yearly pay for serious game developer in California is $107,050.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $80,400.00 and $122,400.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.
What is a serious game developer?
A Serious Game Developer designs and develops games with educational, training, or behavioral change purposes rather than pure entertainment. They integrate game mechanics, interactive storytelling, and simulations to engage users in learning experiences. These games are often used in fields like healthcare, corporate training, military, and education. Developers collaborate with subject matter experts, instructional designers, and psychologists to ensure the content is both effective and engaging. Their responsibilities include game design, coding, testing, and optimizing experiences for different platforms.
What are the typical day-to-day responsibilities of a serious game developer?
On a daily basis, a Serious Game Developer collaborates with multidisciplinary teams to design, prototype, and implement interactive experiences that achieve specific learning or training goals. Responsibilities include coding game mechanics, integrating multimedia assets, conducting playtesting sessions, and gathering feedback from subject matter experts and end users. Developers also refine gameplay based on user data and assessment outcomes, ensuring both educational effectiveness and user engagement. The role often involves balancing creativity with technical precision while adapting to evolving client needs and project requirements.
What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in the serious game developer position, and why are they important?
A Serious Game Developer needs expertise in game design, programming, and a solid understanding of instructional design or behavioral science, often supported by a degree in computer science, game development, or a related field. Familiarity with game engines like Unity or Unreal Engine, proficiency in scripting languages (such as C# or Python), and experience with learning management systems or assessment tools are typically required. Strong communication, creativity, and project management skills allow developers to collaborate effectively with subject matter experts and stakeholders. These competencies are essential because serious games must not only be engaging but also achieve specific educational or training outcomes for diverse audiences.
What are the most commonly searched types of Serious Game Developer jobs in California?
The most popular types of Serious Game Developer jobs in California are:
What are popular job titles related to Serious Game Developer jobs in California?
For Serious Game Developer jobs in California, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Serious Game Developer jobs in California look for?
The top searched job categories for Serious Game Developer jobs in California are:
Other
Posted 8 days ago
Job description
About the role:
Cobalt is seeking people who can build the environments frontier labs train and evaluate agents in: tasks with real difficulty, unambiguous success conditions, and scoring that survives contact with a capable model.
This opportunity is suited to reinforcement learning researchers, research engineers, simulation and tooling engineers, and people who have built serious benchmarks, competition problems, or training environments. Depth in RL is valuable, but so is the engineering discipline required to make an environment reproducible and hard to game.
You do not need prior experience in data annotation. What matters is that you can take a domain, decide what a meaningful task in it looks like, and build something that measures it correctly.
What you'll do:
Depending on the project, you may:
- Design and build task environments with programmatic success criteria, including multi-step and tool-using tasks that cannot be solved by a shortcut
- Specify reward functions and partial-credit schemes, and stress-test them for the ways a capable agent would exploit them rather than solve the task
- Produce written reasoning traces and reference solutions showing how a competent human works through the tasks you build
- Evaluate agent trajectories, identifying the specific step at which behavior goes wrong, and classifying failures into a consistent taxonomy
- Assess whether a scored result reflects genuine task completion, and flag cases where the environment or the metric is measuring the wrong thing
Projects follow their own guidelines, formatting conventions, and quality standards, and you will work with feedback from reviewers and lab research teams.
Required qualifications:
- Direct experience with reinforcement learning, agent evaluation, simulation, or benchmark and environment construction, whether in research, industry, or substantial open-source work
- Strong software engineering ability in Python, sufficient to build reproducible environments, harnesses, and automated scoring
- A PhD in a quantitative discipline, or equivalent depth demonstrated through published work, open-source contributions, or production systems
- Understanding of reward hacking and specification gaming, and the instinct to look for them in your own designs before someone else does
- Ability to explain each step of your reasoning and design decisions clearly in writing
Why join Cobalt AI:
- Advance frontier AI where it counts. Apply your expertise to data that frontier labs cannot obtain any other way, where your reasoning directly shapes how the next generation of models works through technical problems.
- Grow professionally. Expand your influence through evaluation projects, advisory roles, and research collaborations, while developing a working understanding of how frontier models are trained and assessed.
- Work with a top-tier network. Collaborate with researchers and engineers from leading institutions and labs on high-impact, flexible work.
- Set your own schedule. Flexible 10 to 40 hour weeks that fit around your existing work and your life.
- Competitive pay. Rates vary by project and are determined by a number of factors, including scope, skillset, and experience.