I've decided that my dream job is to be a "level editor" on computer games. My current job is in game programming but I want to do something more creative. Thing, is I'm not sure what they are looking for exactly. I have made games in my spare time so I design the levels for them but would they be looking for a qualified artist? Is it just a case of building a portfolio of game levels that you design in level editors that come with games? I saw one job which wanted skills in Maya. I can use Blender but Maya is a bit expensive for me. Has anyone here moved from the programming side to more creative artistic side of the game industry. If so, have you got any tips about how to do it?

There used to be a free Maya Personal Learning Edition for students and people learning. I think they discontinued it but if you look around you can find it still available from download mirror sites. Might be worth looking into if you want to gain some experience with it.

Well, I'm not exactly sure what it entails, but if I were to want a Level Editor, I'd look for a lot of experience making levels. Anyone can make a level, but only some can make a good level. Some things many people seem to fail to do is thoroughly analyze it with balance in mind. If this is a level for a popular RTS, you would want to measure the distance between key spots, the estimated income per second at each spot, width of open spots that need protecting, etc. For a FPS, you'd want to measure time to choke points, cover for both sides, etc.

A "Level Editor" is usually the application used to create levels. It's probably better to say Level Designer/Developer/Creator.

Of course, the main thing you should do is grab a few game engines with level editors included (Unreal3 / Source Engine / etc) and create one good enough so people actually download and play them, that look good on a resume.

Using Maya/3DSMAX is presumably a must if you want to populate your levels with good looking custom objects, or to create more complex scenes. You can pass a few years in school simply to know how to use those application though, it can become quite complex. And yes, I guess there are trial/academic version free, just check the websites.

As Crazyfool said, keep in mind making good looking levels is simply part of the job. You also have to shape them so they are fun to play and provides innovative stuff for the player.

Game Career Guide's "A Guide For Aspiring Level Designers"

Meaby you can try designing a few littleBigPlanet levels, you'd have stats to check the popularity. I don't think it's likely you'll get noticed and hired that way but I guess it wouldn't hurt.