I’ve built my 20-year game dev career in design leadership, technical design, and gameplay engineering. I have experience in C/C++, C#, Lua, Javascript, and Python, and I’ve shipped games on both Unity and Unreal.

Skills • Work experience • Additional experience • Publications • Soundtracks • Free games

Introduction

I’m looking for short-term contracts or full-time employment in the games industry as a design lead, technical designer, or gameplay engineer.

Rates are negotiable based on job type and duration, but will need to be competitive with Seattle-area norms. Lower rates may be available on a limited basis for indies and projects with a marked public benefit.

Remote work is a requirement; very occasional on-site presence and/or travel are negotiable, but full-time on-site is a non-starter at this time due to child care requirements.

Interested? Email me or find me on LinkedIn!

Skills

Engines: Unity Unreal

Languages: C++ C# Javascript Lua Typescript

Disciplines: Design Leadership Game Design Technical Design Game Writing Gameplay Engineering Web Design Music Composition

Other: Markdown HTML Git Perforce Confluence Jira Notion Community Organizing Event Planning

Work experience

Highlights:

I’ve led multiple design teams, including creative direction, hiring, mentoring, and performance reviews
I’ve run a game dev business and understand creative/financial tradeoffs
I’ve developed frameworks and best practices for large cross-functional organizations
I’ve gained extensive experience with Unity and C#, and shipped in Unreal and VR
I’ve built Unreal from source, and contributed a pull request to address a network timing issue

I excel at:

Force-multiplying design teams with goal-oriented and empathy-driven leadership
Building effective, sustainable development frameworks and best practices
Tenacity against difficult problems, both design and technical
Developer advocacy including technical writing, presentations, tutorials, etc.
Pushing boundaries and exploring new design spaces

Bungie

Design Lead • January 2020-June 2024 • Destiny 2

Led a technical design team that drove organization-level design consistency and technical standards for Destiny 2 Design Leadership Technical Design
Built tools and wrote reference docs to support those standards studio-wide C++ C#
Led a cross-functional team that designed and built the Banes system that launched with the Destiny 2: Revenant expansion Design Leadership

Read more: Destiny 2

RED Games

Senior Engineer • April 2017-November 2019 • LEGO Brawls, The Raft

TheGamer.com said: “Thanks to its superb touchscreen controls, LEGO Brawls is currently one of Apple Arcade’s best games for playing on-the-go.”

Primary design and technical contributor on LEGO Brawls Design Leadership Unity C#
Integrated determinsitic rollback networking strategy leveraging Photon Quantum C#
Designed and implemented best-in-class touch controls Gameplay Engineering Technical Design

Read more: LEGO Brawls

Primary design and technical contributor on The Raft Design Leadership Unreal C++ Blueprint
Solved technical and logistical challenges for placing four players in VR into the same physical space (Oculus/Vive) Gameplay Engineering Technical Design
Implemented sophisticated VR avatar animation extrapolation from limited player inputs Technical Design

Read more: The Raft

castAR

Lead Design & Tech • July 2016-April 2017

Led a cross-function team prototyping games for the castAR platform Design Leadership Unity C#
De-risked technical challenges due to building for in-development hardware Gameplay Engineering Technical Design
Established conventions for user interaction on a brand new AR platform Game Design

Utah Games Guild

Co-founder & Primary Coordinator • May 2014-March 2018

Co-founded the Utah Games Guild, a community organization dedicated to growing and energizing the Utah independent video game development scene Community Organizing
Organized several indie game showcases at major expos including Salt Lake Comic Con and Salt Lake Gaming Con Event Planning
Managed a partnership with Youth Tech Hub and the city of Eagle Mountain to present an event designed to introduce kids and teens to game development Event Planning
Coordinated quarterly Game Nights at The Leonardo Event Planning

Read more: Utah Games Guild

Kickbomb Entertainment

Founder • March 2013-April 2018 • Legacy of the Elder Star

GamerPros.co said: “Legacy of the Elder Star knocks it out of the park, retaining the retro charm of the genre without shackling itself to the past.”

Founded an indie micro-studio and built Legacy of the Elder Star Unity C#
Did all the design, programming, writing, music, and marketing Game Design Technical Design Web Design Game Writing Music Composition
Hired an artist for all the art and animation
Currently available on Steam and itch.io for PC, Mac, and Linux

Read more: Legacy of the Elder Star

LightBox Interactive

Lead Game Designer • January 2009-March 2013 • Starhawk, PlunderNauts

G4TV awarded Starhawk Best Multiplayer of E3 in 2011

Took Playstation 3 hit Starhawk from concept to completion as lead designer Design Leadership
Hired and managed an eight-person design team Design Leadership
Directed level design, combat design, and mission design Design Leadership
Developed technical standards and tools for mission and game mode development C++ Lua Technical Design
Worked closely with Sony to develop the soundtrack’s unique Western flavor Design Leadership
Contributed to story development, cinematics, and in-game dialogue writing Design Leadership Game Writing
Gave multiple press interviews and appearances to promote the game

Read more: Starhawk

Worked with studio leadership to establish the concept, design, and business model for PlunderNauts Design Leadership

Read more: PlunderNauts

Incognito Entertainment

Game Designer • January 2006-December 2008 • Warhawk + DLC

Gaming Target named Warhawk its PS3-Exclusive Game of the Year

Shipped award-winning PS3 hit Warhawk
Built complex behaviors and in-game tools using a proprietary C-like scripting language Technical Design
Tuned and balanced game controls, weapons, and general mechanics Game Design
Wrote flavor text for all in-game elements Game Writing
Assumed a lead design role for the game’s three DLC expansions Design Leadership
Contributed to expansion concept and product design Design Leadership
Whiteboxed expansion map layouts Game Design

Read more: Warhawk

Additional experience

While I don’t yet have commercial/paid web development experience, my website is built on a custom static site generator that I wrote from scratch as a project to build my knowledge in the web space.

Leverages vanilla Javascript and Node with minimal dependencies as a goal Javascript Node
Translates Markdown source to standards-compliant static HTML output Markdown HTML
Supports shortcodes for content automation and painless multimedia embeds
Automatically generates and updates an Atom feed
Validates input to catch issues like broken links, missing alt text, etc. before publication
Integrated differential deployment

Publications

I’ve written several articles about game development, informed by both my commercial and indie experiences.

Soundtracks

I’ve written digital music since 2004. I primarily use Reason with an Arturia KeyLab 88 MkII.

Legacy of the Elder Star:

Bloxx:

🎵 Title
🎵 Home
🎵 Starfield
🎵 Full Moon
🎵 Lonely Wormhole
🎵 Gaseous Cloud
🎵 Dead Planet
🎵 Nebula
🎵 Supernova
🎵 Anomaly

Other pieces:

🎵 Micro.Bit
🎵 Soul Burn
🎵 Tear It Down
🎵 TRI
🎵 TRI Again

Free games

I’ve made a bunch of small hobby games, game jams, and experiments, collected here for posterity: