Valve Looking for Electrical Engineers to Help with "Hardware Design"

Okay, so Valve isn't building a 'Steam Box' game console as was previously rumored to be the case. Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi pretty much shot the notion down, though he left the rumor on life support by not dismissing the idea outright, saying only that Valve is a "long way from...shipping any sort of hardware." Fine, that's fair enough. But Valve is definitely up to something. A new job posting seeking electrical engineers does more than hint that Valve is looking at building some type of hardware, it flat out confirms it.

"For years, Valve has been all about writing software that provides great gameplay experiences. Now we’re developing hardware to enhance those experiences, and you can be a key part of making that happen," Valve explains in a job posting. "Join our highly motivated team that’s doing hardware design, prototyping, testing, and production across a wide range of platforms. We’re not talking about me-too mice and gamepads here – help us invent whole new gaming experiences."


Exactly what type of hardware Valve wants to build isn't clear, and perhaps Valve doesn't even know. However, the company did say that the job involves "work[ing] with the hardware team to conceive, design, evaluate, and produce new types of input, output, and platform hardware," an open-ended description that rules out nothing.