How to Apply to Nexon Korea

11 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 15 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Nexon Games is the Pangyo-based developer behind The First Descendant (UE5, launched July 2024), Mabinogi Mobile (launched in Korea March 2025), and the in-development Project HP, sitting inside the broader TSE-listed Nexon Co. (3659) group founded by the late Kim Jung-ju in 1994.
  • The canonical application path is recruit.nexon.com (the Nexon Group recruiting portal). Korean job-board listings on Saramin, JobKorea and Wanted typically mirror the same roles but route back to the Nexon recruit site.
  • Korean-language resume plus a real 자기소개서 (self-introduction essay) are mandatory for most Korean-resident roles. English CVs are welcome as a supplement, especially for engineering and global publishing tracks.
  • Engine and live-service expertise dominate the bar: Unreal Engine 5 for First Descendant and Project HP, Unity for Mabinogi Mobile, and proprietary engines for legacy titles, all paired with shipped Live Ops experience.
  • Compensation for senior IC and lead roles in Korean AAA studios typically falls in the 70-100M KRW base range, with signing bonuses, incentive bonuses tied to Group performance, and Nexon Co. equity components for senior contributors.
  • Foreign-national hiring is real but limited; expect to need an E-7 specialty visa, a clear discipline match, and either Korean working ability or a globally-facing role on titles like The First Descendant.
  • Crunch and live-ops on-call are real considerations. The 52-hour law applies but seasonal launches stretch it; ask directly about workload, post-launch stabilisation patterns, and how the team handled the First Descendant launch in 2024.
  • Post-2022 governance under the Kim Jung-ju succession is more conservative on M&A and more disciplined on capital returns, but more ambitious on flagship new IP. Senior-level candidates should be ready to discuss how they balance live service longevity against new IP risk.
  • Offers from Nexon Games are most often lost to NCSoft (Pangyo, also AAA), Krafton (Yongsan/Pangyo, console-grade ambitions and PUBG comp), Smilegate (Pangyo, Lost Ark and CrossFire), and increasingly Shift Up. If you have parallel processes, run them on the same timeline so you can compare written offers.

About Nexon Korea

Nexon Games Co., Ltd. is the Pangyo-based first-party studio that develops live and upcoming titles for Nexon Korea, the Korean operating subsidiary of Nexon Co., Ltd. (Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime: 3659). To understand a job at Nexon Games you have to understand the broader Nexon Group, because the studio is one node in a Korea-Japan corporate structure that has shaped online gaming since the dial-up era. The group was founded in Seoul in December 1994 by the late Kim Jung-ju (often romanised as Jay Kim) and a small team that, in 1996, launched Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, widely credited as the world's first commercially successful graphical MMORPG. KartRider, Mabinogi, MapleStory and the Neople-developed Dungeon & Fighter (DNF) followed and turned Nexon into the dominant Korean free-to-play publisher of the 2000s. To access Japanese capital markets and reduce single-country risk, the group restructured under a Tokyo holding company and Nexon Co., Ltd. listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December 2011, at the time the largest internet IPO in Japan. The corporate seat has remained in Tokyo ever since, while the bulk of development talent has stayed in Korea, primarily clustered around Pangyo Techno Valley south of Seoul. The group now operates through Nexon Korea (publishing and operations), Neople (DNF), NAT Games, Nexon Games and several smaller studios. In February 2022, founder Kim Jung-ju died unexpectedly at age 54 in Hawaii. Control of NXC Corporation, the Kim family holding vehicle that owns the controlling stake in Nexon Co., passed to his widow Yu Jung-hyun and his estate, and a high-profile inheritance tax dispute with the Korean National Tax Service led to NXC shares being transferred to the government in lieu of cash, briefly making the Korean state one of the largest indirect Nexon shareholders. Operationally, post-2022 leadership has emphasised what management describes internally as a 'Big & Little' strategy: keep monetising the durable live service portfolio (MapleStory, Mabinogi, FC Online, Sudden Attack, KartRider Drift, Dungeon & Fighter) while taking bigger creative swings on a smaller number of new IPs. Nexon Games specifically is the studio behind The First Descendant, the third-person looter-shooter built in Unreal Engine 5 that launched globally in July 2024 and became one of the most-played free-to-play titles on Steam at debut, as well as Mabinogi Mobile (launched in Korea in March 2025) and the codenamed Project HP, an action-RPG in development. The studio also continues to operate Blue Archive in Korea in cooperation with Yostar and the Japanese Nexon affiliate. For a candidate this means Nexon Games is not a startup and not a pure live-ops shop: it is a mid-sized AAA-adjacent Korean studio inside a TSE-listed parent, building both new IP and ongoing services, with all the governance, crunch culture and conservative-but-occasionally-bold dynamics that implies.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Confirm the role on Nexon's official Korean recruiting portal at recruit

    Confirm the role on Nexon's official Korean recruiting portal at recruit.nexon.com (the Group-wide hub) and on the Nexon Games-branded careers page reachable from nexon.com/games. Korean job boards Saramin, JobKorea and Wanted typically mirror the same listings, but the canonical application is submitted on the Greeting/Nexon recruit site so that the role ID and recruiter routing are correct.

  2. 2
    Create an account on recruit

    Create an account on recruit.nexon.com with a Korean mobile number (real-name verification, 본인인증, is required for most permanent roles). Foreign applicants without a Korean phone can usually use the email-only flow but may have to follow up with a recruiter to complete identity verification before an offer.

  3. 3
    Prepare a Korean-language resume (이력서) and self-introduction letter (자기소개서, jagi

    Prepare a Korean-language resume (이력서) and self-introduction letter (자기소개서, jagi-sogaeseo) in the Nexon template. The 자소서 is not a Western cover letter; it is a structured 3-5 prompt essay (motivation, strengths/weaknesses, a project you are proud of, why Nexon, long-term goals). Even bilingual postings expect a Korean 자소서 for Korean-resident roles. A separate English CV is welcome as an attachment for engineering and art roles where international experience is relevant.

  4. 4
    Attach a portfolio appropriate to the discipline: a shipped-game reel and ArtSta

    Attach a portfolio appropriate to the discipline: a shipped-game reel and ArtStation link for art, a GitHub or shipped-title log for programmers, design docs and playable prototypes for designers, and a localisation sample for LQA. For The First Descendant and Project HP teams, Unreal Engine 5 work and live-service experience are explicitly weighted.

  5. 5
    Expect a multi-stage interview: (1) document screening by the recruiting team, (

    Expect a multi-stage interview: (1) document screening by the recruiting team, (2) a written assignment or coding test for engineering and design roles (typically a take-home with 3-7 days), (3) a first-round practical interview (실무 면접) with the hiring team lead and a peer, (4) an executive or culture-fit interview (임원 면접) with a director or studio head, and (5) reference checks plus a salary and conditions negotiation with HR. End-to-end timelines run four to eight weeks.

  6. 6
    Negotiate the offer in writing

    Negotiate the offer in writing. Korean offers will specify base salary, signing bonus (사이닝보너스, common at senior levels), incentive structure (성과급, tied to studio and Group performance), stock or RSU eligibility (Nexon Co. 3659.T equity for senior contributors), relocation assistance for Pangyo, and 4대보험 (the four mandatory insurances). For experienced hires, push back on the first number; Korean game-industry comp is meaningfully negotiable, especially against a competing offer from Krafton, NCSoft or Smilegate.

  7. 7
    Onboarding happens at the Pangyo office (Nexon Korea HQ campus)

    Onboarding happens at the Pangyo office (Nexon Korea HQ campus). New hires complete a security and IP induction, get assigned to a 본부 (division) and 팀 (team), and typically have a 3-month probation (수습 기간) during which performance is reviewed before regular employment is confirmed.

Resume Tips for Nexon Korea

recommended

Write a Korean-language 이력서 in the Nexon-supplied template if one is offered; ot

Write a Korean-language 이력서 in the Nexon-supplied template if one is offered; otherwise use a clean one- or two-page Korean format with a photo block, education, career history (most recent first), shipped-title list, skills, certifications and a portfolio URL. Recruiters at Korean game companies still expect this layout and parse it faster than a Western CV.

recommended

Treat the 자기소개서 as a real evaluation artifact, not a formality

Treat the 자기소개서 as a real evaluation artifact, not a formality. Answer each prompt in 600-1,000 Korean characters, anchor every claim in a specific project or metric, and explicitly connect your motivation to a Nexon title or studio direction (for example The First Descendant's seasonal model, Mabinogi's 20-year live-ops legacy, or the studio's stated push into new IP). Generic 'I love games' essays are screened out.

recommended

Lead your shipped-title list with concurrent users, MAU, revenue or platform lau

Lead your shipped-title list with concurrent users, MAU, revenue or platform launches you personally contributed to. Korean game studios weigh shipped-and-operated experience above degree pedigree once you are past entry level. If you worked on a live service, state the LiveOps cadence you owned (weekly patch, seasonal content, balance updates) and the size of the team you collaborated with.

recommended

Be explicit about engine and toolchain: Unreal Engine 5 (with Nanite/Lumen), Unr

Be explicit about engine and toolchain: Unreal Engine 5 (with Nanite/Lumen), Unreal Engine 4, Unity, or Nexon's proprietary engines and tooling used on MapleStory, Mabinogi and KartRider. For The First Descendant and Project HP, deep UE5 skills (Blueprints plus C++, Niagara, gameplay ability system, replication for online play) are differentiating. For Mabinogi Mobile and mobile teams, Unity plus mobile performance and store-compliance experience matters.

recommended

For art roles, attach an ArtStation portfolio sized for the target role (charact

For art roles, attach an ArtStation portfolio sized for the target role (character, environment, technical art, concept, UI, animation, VFX). For technical art and rendering engineers, include shader and pipeline samples. Korean studios respond strongly to portfolios that show range and a clearly defined personal style rather than a hundred similar pieces.

recommended

For programming roles, list languages and systems precisely: C++ (engine and gam

For programming roles, list languages and systems precisely: C++ (engine and gameplay), C# (Unity, tools), Python (build/automation), Go or Java for backend, and proven experience with multiplayer netcode, dedicated servers, anti-cheat integration, matchmaking, and large-scale Live Ops infrastructure. Open-source contributions and a public GitHub help, but shipped multiplayer titles help more.

recommended

If you are a foreign applicant, do not hide it

If you are a foreign applicant, do not hide it. State your Korean proficiency honestly using TOPIK level or a clear self-assessment (business fluent, conversational, beginner). Nexon Games hires non-Korean talent for a small set of roles (specialist art, senior engine, global publishing, English narrative on global IPs like The First Descendant), but the bar is high and the visa path (E-7 specialty work visa) requires a degree match and salary minimum.

recommended

Tailor for the studio, not the group

Tailor for the studio, not the group. Nexon Co. is a holding company in Tokyo; Nexon Korea is the publisher; Nexon Games is the developer for The First Descendant, Mabinogi Mobile and Project HP. Reference the correct entity and the correct title; sending a Mabinogi-only resume to a First Descendant team or vice versa signals you did not read the posting.

Interview Culture

Interviewing at Nexon Games sits at the intersection of three cultures and you should prepare for all of them.

The first is the Korean games industry baseline. Pangyo Techno Valley, where Nexon, NCSoft, Krafton, Kakao Games, Smilegate and Wemade all sit within a few subway stops of each other, is the densest gaming cluster in the country and arguably the world. Everyone has worked with everyone and reference networks are tight, so be straightforward about past projects and reasons for leaving; embellishing a credit on Lost Ark or a Krafton title will be discovered. Korean game-industry crunch is real and recurrent: the industry has been the subject of multiple Ministry of Employment investigations and the Game Industry Workers' Union (게임산업종사자노조) was formed in part because of conditions at large publishers, including Nexon. The 52-hour workweek law applies, but pre-launch and seasonal-update periods often push to its limits. An honest interview will mention this; interviewers respect candidates who ask directly about workload patterns, on-call rotation for live ops, and how the team has handled past launches like The First Descendant in 2024 or Mabinogi Mobile in 2025. The second culture is the Nexon Group post-Kim Jung-ju succession environment. Since the founder's death in February 2022 and the inheritance dispute that transferred a portion of NXC shares to the Korean government, Nexon has been visibly more conservative on M&A, more focused on returning capital to Tokyo shareholders, and more willing to greenlight bigger AAA bets like The First Descendant alongside disciplined live-ops on legacy titles. Expect interviewers, especially at director level, to ask how you would balance long-tail live service health against new-IP ambition, and to probe whether you can articulate a product strategy under public-company financial discipline rather than startup hand-waving. The third culture is studio-specific. Nexon Games is younger as a legal entity (formed from the merger of NetGames and Nexon GT in 2022) and its identity is still being written around The First Descendant's success and Project HP's promise. Teams skew technically strong, with a meaningful contingent who have shipped console-quality titles, and the interview loop reflects that: practical assignments are non-trivial, executive interviews are pointed, and the cultural-fit conversation will probe how you handle disagreement, how you give and receive feedback in a Korean hierarchical context, and how you would behave when a producer escalates a hotfix at midnight on the second day of a season launch. Dress is business casual. Use 존댓말 (formal Korean) by default, exchange business cards with two hands, and address senior interviewers by title plus 님 (e.g., 본부장님, 팀장님). It is acceptable, even expected, to ask thoughtful questions about live-ops cadence, anti-cheat strategy on The First Descendant, the Mabinogi Mobile global rollout plan, and how the studio is staffing Project HP.

What Nexon Korea Looks For

  • Demonstrable shipped experience on online or live-service games, ideally with concurrent-user counts, monetisation outcomes, or platform-launch credits you can talk about in detail.
  • Deep Unreal Engine 5 ability for The First Descendant, Project HP and other AAA-track teams, or strong Unity plus mobile performance skill for Mabinogi Mobile and mobile-first teams.
  • Comfort with Korean live-service operating rhythms: seasonal patches, balance updates, anti-cheat coordination, KPI-driven content planning, and rapid hotfix discipline without burning the team out.
  • Korean business fluency in writing and speaking for Korean-resident roles. For globally-facing roles on The First Descendant, English fluency at a working business level alongside Korean reading comprehension.
  • A portfolio or shipped-title record that shows craft and consistency, not just volume. Korean leads weight 'taste' (감각) and execution discipline highly.
  • Resilience and emotional steadiness. Nexon has been through founder loss, an inheritance crisis, a major IPO-attempt cancellation, and high-stakes launches; teams want people who keep shipping when conditions move.
  • Willingness to operate inside a Korea-Japan listed-company governance model, including stricter security, IP, and disclosure norms than a private studio.
  • A genuine, specific point of view about Nexon's portfolio. Interviewers can tell within two minutes whether you have actually played The First Descendant past the early game, dipped into Mabinogi or MapleStory, or only read Wikipedia.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Nexon Games actually located and do I have to be in Korea?
The studio is in Pangyo Techno Valley, Seongnam-si, just south of Seoul, sharing the Nexon Korea campus alongside neighbours like NCSoft, Krafton, Smilegate, Kakao Games and Wemade. Most engineering, art, design, QA and live-ops roles are on-site or hybrid in Pangyo, with a default expectation of in-office presence during launches and seasonal patches. A small number of global publishing, partnerships, and specialist contractor roles can be remote-Korea or remote-Japan, but Korean-resident Pangyo-based work is the default and foreign hires almost always need to relocate, take an apartment in the Pangyo or Bundang corridor, and onboard with the rest of the team.
What does compensation typically look like for senior roles?
Korean AAA gaming compensation for senior individual contributors and team leads at Nexon, NCSoft, Krafton, Smilegate and Shift Up typically lands in the 70-100M KRW base range, with signing bonuses for senior hires, an annual performance bonus (성과급) tied to studio and Group results, and Nexon Co. (3659.T) equity for senior contributors. Director-level and chief roles go meaningfully higher, often well past 150M KRW base plus equity. Junior comp clusters in the 40-55M KRW range. Always negotiate the written offer; first numbers are not final, especially if you have a parallel offer from a Pangyo neighbour you can put on the table.
Why do candidates reject Nexon Games offers in favour of NCSoft, Krafton, Smilegate or Shift Up?
The main reasons are project assignment (a candidate prefers Krafton's console ambitions on inZOI or Project ARC, NCSoft's Lineage and TL ecosystem, Smilegate's Lost Ark, or Shift Up's Stellar Blade follow-up), live-ops fatigue (some candidates leave specifically because they want a single-launch console title rather than another seasonal service), and slightly higher base or equity packages from competitors during hot hiring cycles. Nexon Games wins on First Descendant momentum, Mabinogi Mobile execution, and the strength of the Group's balance sheet.
Does Nexon Games hire foreign nationals who do not speak fluent Korean?
Yes, but selectively. Specialist roles in art, technical art, engine and rendering, anti-cheat, global publishing, community for international territories, and English narrative on globally-facing IPs like The First Descendant do hire non-Korean speakers and sponsor E-7 specialty work visas. Generalist roles, most design roles, and roles deeply embedded in Korean live-ops are realistically Korean-speaker-only. The E-7 visa requires a degree match to the role and a salary above the published Ministry of Justice minimum. Be honest about your Korean level on your resume; HR is more open to a clearly-stated beginner than a vaguely-claimed intermediate.
What is the actual workload like? Is crunch as bad as people say?
It depends on the team and the calendar. Korean game-industry crunch is real and the Game Industry Workers' Union exists in part because of past conditions at large publishers, including Nexon. The 52-hour workweek law applies and HR enforces logging, but pre-launch periods (the months leading into the First Descendant launch in mid-2024 and Mabinogi Mobile in early 2025 are recent examples) and seasonal content drops push schedules. Live-ops teams carry on-call rotations. Ask directly in interviews about post-launch stabilisation patterns and how leadership protected (or did not protect) the team during recent launches.
How is the post-Kim Jung-ju succession affecting hiring and strategy?
Founder Kim Jung-ju died in February 2022 and the inheritance tax case led to a portion of NXC Corporation shares being transferred to the Korean government in lieu of cash. Operationally, this has meant: more conservative M&A, steadier capital returns to Tokyo shareholders, continued aggressive investment in flagship new IP (The First Descendant, Project HP), and disciplined milking of legacy live services (MapleStory, Dungeon & Fighter via Neople, Mabinogi, FC Online). Hiring has stayed steady on shipping teams and tightened on speculative bets. Senior candidates should expect to be asked how they would operate inside a public-company governance model rather than a founder-led startup.
What ATS or recruiting system does Nexon use, and where do I apply?
The Nexon Group runs its own Korean-language recruiting portal at recruit.nexon.com, which is the canonical entry point for Nexon Korea, Nexon Games and most Korean affiliate roles. Korean job boards Saramin, JobKorea, Wanted and LinkedIn Korea typically mirror the same listings, and Greeting (the Korean ATS used by many gaming companies) sometimes shows up for cross-posted roles, but you should always confirm and submit on recruit.nexon.com so the role ID, division code and recruiter routing are correct. Applying only on a third-party board risks your CV landing in a generic queue rather than in front of the hiring team.
How long does the interview process take and what stages should I expect?
Plan for four to eight weeks end-to-end. The standard pipeline is document screening (서류 전형), a take-home assignment or coding test for technical roles, a first-round practical interview (실무 면접) with the hiring team lead and a peer, an executive interview (임원 면접) with a director or studio head, reference checks and an HR negotiation on salary, signing bonus, equity and start date. For senior, lead or sensitive roles add a second executive interview and a longer reference cycle. Pause and ask if a stage is skipped; sometimes that signals fast-track interest, sometimes it signals a less-rigorous track.
What kind of portfolio matters most for The First Descendant and Project HP teams?
Unreal Engine 5 evidence dominates: Nanite and Lumen experience, Niagara VFX, gameplay ability system work, networked replication, dedicated server experience, anti-cheat integration, and shipped multiplayer or live-service titles. For technical art and rendering engineers, attach shader, lighting and pipeline samples. For character and environment art, an ArtStation portfolio sized to AAA console-quality work with consistent style and clear silhouette discipline is more persuasive than a high-volume mixed reel. Mabinogi Mobile teams weight Unity, mobile performance budgeting, store-compliance experience, gacha and live-service economy intuition, and 2D/2.5D art familiarity instead.
How does Nexon Games relate to the rest of the Nexon Group on paper?
Nexon Co., Ltd. is the Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed parent (ticker 3659). NXC Corporation is the Korean Kim-family holding vehicle that owns the controlling stake in Nexon Co. Nexon Korea is the Korean operating subsidiary that publishes and operates titles in Korea. Nexon Games is a Korean development subsidiary, formed from the 2022 merger of NetGames and Nexon GT, that builds The First Descendant, Mabinogi Mobile and Project HP. Neople (DNF), NAT Games and several smaller studios sit alongside it. When you sign an offer, read which legal entity is the employer; for Pangyo developer roles it is typically Nexon Games or Nexon Korea, not Nexon Co. in Tokyo.

Open Positions

Nexon Korea currently has 15 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 15 open positions at Nexon Korea

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Sources

  1. Nexon Co., Ltd. - Tokyo Stock Exchange listing and corporate profile (3659) —
  2. Nexon Co., Ltd. official corporate site (Tokyo) —
  3. Nexon Korea official site —
  4. Nexon Group recruiting portal —
  5. Nexon Games studio page (within nexon.com) —
  6. The First Descendant official site —
  7. Reuters coverage of Nexon founder Kim Jung-ju's death (March 2022) —
  8. Korea Game Industry Workers' Union (게임산업종사자노조) —