LIFE AT NORDEUS

HOW DO ITOPS SYSTEM ENGINEERS LEVEL UP EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE?

Gaming industry, as one of the biggest entertainment industries, is built on information technologies and is pushing its boundaries every day. At Nordeus, we are working on games played by millions worldwide. So how does an IT Operations team help them make games? 

IT Operations (ITOps) team at Nordeus is responsible for maintaining, managing the company’s internal infrastructure and delivering flawless IT experience to our colleagues. In all our projects and everyday tasks we are driven to provide amazing user experience. 

One of the biggest challenges regarding user experience is finding the sweet spot between security and convenience. Blocking everything and being seen internally as the strict and uncompromising IT team won’t make anyone more secure. Just the opposite, people will always find a way to avoid any security mechanism which, as a result, makes the system even more vulnerable. 

Being proactive, listening to the needs of our colleagues and finding a secure way them with solutions is a win-win for us as a team and business. To achieve this we constantly work behind the scenes utilizing and testing new technologies, automation and improving monitoring to keep everything in place. Besides all technology we use to secure our business, our security-aware colleagues are our strongest defense. 

Here are some of the most common tasks and responsibilities of ITOps team at Nordeus

– Helping colleagues with IT problems – The key responsibility of IT team is to be on the front line when a problem occurs and there is no better way to get familiar with the company infrastructure and services. Supporting our colleagues isn’t easy, everyone at Nordeus is very tech savvy and they won’t reach out to our team if there is no need for it. Every new problem questions your knowledge of hardware, software and network protocols. 

One of the most challenging tasks during COVID was figuring out how to support remote work and make sure we keep the creativity going, while improving our games and working on the new ones. Utilizing tools such as Zoom, Miro, Slack and Google Workspace helped us remain productive and focused even during the work-from-home period.  

These tools prove useful even today, when we work in hybrid mode. This means that we have to make sure that more than 20 meeting rooms are equipped with the latest technologies and support the hybrid way of working.

– Maintaining Nordeus network – Since we’ve been a part of Take-Two family, Nordeus network has also become more complex. Everyday we seek to give the best QoS for users within our local network and make sure that connectivity with studios, data centers and global cloud providers all over the world is stable, are secure and reliable. 

Our network is mostly based on Cisco equipment together with Arista and Palo Alto, so we use their technology and products every day.

– Managing internal infrastructure – This includes almost everything a gaming company could need except gaming infrastructure which is managed by our Infrastructure team. We are responsible for ensuring all of our systems are running smoothly and efficiently, that helps the development teams focus on creating amazing games. These services are mostly hosted on premise but we also utilize cloud technologies and host our services on Google Cloud Platform.

– Securing our business – As mentioned above, security is as an essential part of what we do as a team, but in gaming it requires a slightly different approach. We want to make sure that security does not hinder the creativity of everyone at Nordeus and does not slow them down while keeping our work secure. Nowadays with a diversity of cyber attacks this can be challenging, but it is also a great chance for our team to get creative in finding solutions.

Although our mission as a team is to provide seamless IT experience to everyone at Nordeus, we also encourage ideas that bring together outstanding workplace experience and latest technology. Such was the project we did in collaboration with the Facility Team- air quality project. How did we implement it?

With the help of scientists and experts in the field of air quality, and together with the Facility team we were able to not only get a hold of the best sensors for data collection but to put the expertise of our team to good use. We had to write a program that would collect all this data and make sure that it is available to everyone at Nordeus. With the basic knowledge of Python and usage of API we were able to level up our workplace environment and experience for all Nordeans.  

Are you passionate about delivering high-quality and precise solutions? Do you get excited by the new tech and are always looking for creative solutions on how to implement them? Then we have great news for you!

Check out the open position on our Careers page and join us!