Work Experience

2K Games, Senior Gameplay Engineer, Unannounced title and Bioshock 4                                                   June 2021-Current
 Developed gameplay systems for an online multiplayer game using a proprietary engine.
 Developed gameplay systems and related editor tools for an Unreal 5 title.
 Managed engineering interns during their rotations at Cloud Chamber within a longer
   internal internship program.   
 Collaborated with a remote-only designers, artists, audio developers, and other programmers,
   sharing Unreal Blueprints with multiple stakeholders. Frequent communication with co-dev
   contractors and international teammates in various time zones.

Southern Arkansas University, Visiting Professor of Computer Science	    	    	    January 2017-June 2021
 Taught four courses per semester related to game programming and Computer Science 1.

Digital Media Institute at Intertech, Game Development Program Coordinator	         November 2015-August 2018	
 Launched the first game development course at the Institute. Developed curriculum
   for a one-year accelerated course in game development using Unity; taught weekly in-person courses.

Red Accent, Senior Gameplay Engineer, Unannounced title		                                       September 2014-March 2016
 Collaborated with a small team in SF to prototype games for a large team in Shanghai,
   China, building free-to-play mobile titles using Unity.

2K Marin, Senior Gameplay Engineer, Mafia III			                                     October 2013-September 2014
2K Marin, Gameplay Engineer, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified			        September 2010-October 2013
 Implemented RPG economy systems for character progression, experience, research
   mechanics, perks and other unlocks. Developed tools for rapid iteration in these systems.
 Maintained player weapons code, telemetry for Tableau, rule-based dynamic training
   system to select loading screen hints and in-game hints based on player behavior. 
 Developed data-driven framework for validating, targeting, and executing orders in
   The Bureau’s Battle Focus mode. 

Santa Rosa Junior College, Adjunct Professor						    August 2009-May 2014	
 Developed curriculum and taught weekly game and web development courses.

LucasArts, Gameplay Engineer, Lucidity and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II	    September 2008-September 2010
 Contributed to numerous gameplay and UI systems for Lucidity, an XBLA title:
   multiplanar background compression, various photoshop exporters, and dynamic
   music scoring gameplay integration.   
 Implemented Gorog boss AI for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II.
 Prototyped physics-based gameplay and other systems for an unannounced title on
   a small internal team that prototyped future titles.

Visual Concepts, Presentation Engineer, NBA 2K9					            April 2008-September 2008
 Extended a proprietary scripting language to expose engine functionality for game flow, 
   audio/commentary events, and UI animation. 
 Implemented numerous statistical splashes and overlays (as per televised basketball 
   games); integrated an interface for the user to send commands to AI players. 
	        
Stormfront Studios, Programmer, The Spiderwick Chronicles		  		         	        May 2007-April 2008
 Multiple Gameplay, Input, and HUD tasks; implemented cheat system.
 Delivered Xbox Live demo, kiosk version, and Xbox platform integration. 
 Tools development and maintenance: internal file manager and particle effects editor.

Work Experience continued:

Gearbox Software, Programming Intern, Brothers-In-Arms: Hell’s Highway 	         		         July-September 2006
 Wrote Unreal Script implementing online multiplayer modes for an Unreal 3 title.

White Wolf Publishing, Inc., Copyeditor, Freelance Editor and Writer      	             	  January 2000–June 2005
 Co-wrote nine sourcebooks and copyedited 34 source books and novels for
   various table-top role-playing game properties such as Vampire: The Masquerade.

Education

The Guildhall at SMU, Plano, TX							                     July 2005-March 2007
 Master of Science, Interactive Technology, Specialization: Software Development

State University of New York, New Paltz, NY                                                        	        	    January 2004-June 2005
 Master of Science, Computer Science

University of Texas, Austin, TX							                                December 2000	
 Bachelor of Arts, English, Recipient of National Merit Scholarship and Dedman Scholarship

Publications

AI Game Programming Wisdom 4, Contributing Author						     February 2008
 Co-wrote article “Intrinsic Detail in Navigation Mesh Generation” for a yearly anthology of AI
   papers published by Charles River Media (co-author: Colt McAnlis) 	

Gamasutra, Immediate Professionals: Dev Kits and University Game Degrees, Author			        March 2006

White Wolf Publishing, Inc., various contributions to 43 table-top RPG products             	  January 2000–June 2005

Core Skills

Strong knowledge of Modern C++. 
Intermediate knowledge of Python, C#, JavaScript, Lua.
Console development experience with multiple generations of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo
    hardware, including PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Mobile development experience with Android and iOS.
Development experience with Unity, Unreal 5, Unreal 2.X-3, and multiple proprietary C++ engines.
15+ years of gameplay engineering experience (both AAA and prototyping roles), 10+ years teaching (overlapping). 
3+ years of development experience with Blueprint in Unreal 5.
2+ years of personal development experience with OpenAI API (using ChatGPT LLM), LangChain, 
    Chroma Vector Database for use with a RAG implementation. Integrates Claude and other
    LLMs via their Python APIs or web requests. Some knowledge of AI math/theory.
Strong understanding of agentic model of AI; SUNY master’s thesis used genetic search to plan 
    moves in a board game as well as automatically tune the AI across design iterations. SMU
    thesis was a compression solution for very large terrains for use with AI pathfinding algorithms such as A*.
Intermediate Python package familiarity: mathlib, NumPy, PyQt, PyTorch, tkinter.
Personal development experience with Python applications, mostly small utility apps deployed via Flask for use with JIRA
    task tracking, personal finance, programmable lights, lyric scansion analysis, and audio synthesis.