Level-Up Lunch is a new quarterly virtual panel from Friends of Figma Game Design, and the first one takes on the assumption that costs aspiring designers the most anxiety and time: working in games means writing code.

Four panelists walk through the paths they actually took, across product design, UX, technical design, and gamified work outside the game industry entirely. Real paths, real answers, zero pretense.

Live only. Nothing recorded. RSVP, join us, and ask the stuff you'd never put in a cover letter.

Ashley Koett is a technical game designer at Beef Noodle Studios. She works where design meets code, and she has built UI for Call of Duty franchise games at Activision, developed games inside ControlZee's TypeScript engine for Dot Big Bang, and prototyped game concepts for Samsung TV in Unity.

Aashrey Sharma is a Senior UX Designer at Epic Games, where six years of work have spanned social features and experiences for Epic Social, including Houseparty and Fortnite.

Wei Yan is a senior product designer working across consumer products and platforms. She spent four years at Rockstar Games owning the web layer between the studio's games and its players, designing membership, commerce, gifting, and player tools used by millions.

C.J. Yeh is founder and executive creative director of Cynda Media Lab, where the team builds gamified experiences for brands and institutions. He is a professor at SUNY FIT, chairs the Animation and Game Design BFA curriculum, and leads FoF Game Design community. He speaks to the career path most people never hear about: doing game design work at an agency, for clients who aren't game studios.

Moderating: Christie Shin is a professor at FIT and design director at Cynda Media Lab, with three decades as an educator, creative consultant, and design director specializing in branding, UX/UI, digital product design, and typography. She chairs FIT's Creative Technology & Design Curriculum Committee, and has earned the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence, and she serves on Figma's Educator Advisory Board and is a 2026 Google Higher Ed Faculty AI Fellow.