GamingNintendoarchivesNESjob listingpreservation
Nintendo of America lists a 12-month contract Digital Archivist for Historical Systems in Redmond, paying $35 to $55
The job is hybrid, runs through a staffing agency and wants someone who knows Dublin Core and PREMIS. The role is to turn what veteran staff remember into a searchable repository.
Nintendo of America has a new opening in Redmond, and the person who gets it will spend a year turning memories into records. The title is “CONTRACT - Digital Archivist, Historical Systems.” The listing says “This position is hybrid in Redmond, WA,” and “This is an approximately 12-month contract position.” It is not open to fully remote work, and benefits come through the employing agency rather than Nintendo.
The pay line reads “$35-$55 USD.” The page does not say per what. Hourly is the obvious guess, and it is only a guess, so treat it as a range with no unit. (Corporate listings love a number with no noun.)
The duties are the interesting part. The archivist designs and maintains metadata schemas for historical hardware and software assets, builds taxonomies and naming conventions, and maps relationships among platforms, peripherals, specifications and documentation. Then they build and maintain a searchable repository of historical systems information, so records are easy to find and reuse across teams.
The people part is where the memory lives. The role is to interview subject matter experts and long-tenured employees, turn informal knowledge into structured documentation, and verify information against multiple sources. In plain words, someone has to sit down with the people who were there and write down what they say before it walks out of the building. “Institutional knowledge” is the polite term for the guy who remembers why the thing works that way.
The listing is specific about who fits. It asks for a bachelor’s degree in library and information science, archives, museum studies, information management, history or technical communication, with equivalent professional experience considered, plus at least two years in digital archives, records management, metadata or similar work. Preferred extras include an archives or records management certification, oral history or interview experience, and familiarity with standards such as Dublin Core, DACS, EAD, PREMIS or MODS. Interest in technology history, consumer electronics or gaming is also on the list. Pressing start is not a requirement.
The company description names the Nintendo Entertainment System, and the role centers on legacy hardware and software platforms. The listing does not name which historical systems come first, how the repository will be used or who will see it.
An archive for historical systems will be a place to look up how hardware worked, who built it and what the documents say. Companies that keep their own history in one searchable place tend to stop re-deriving it, and fans have been doing that work for decades with no pay at all. A contract role suggests Nintendo wants a first pass done and judged.
The pay line says $35 to $55 and never says per what.