I’ve built my 20-year game dev career in design leadership, systems design, 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.
- I’ve led multiple design teams
- I’ve run a game dev business and understand creative/financial tradeoffs
- I’ve developed frameworks and best practices for large organizations
- I have extensive Unity experience
- I’ve worked in VR/AR and Unreal
I excel at:
- Force-multiplying design teams with goal-oriented and empathy-driven leadership
- Building effective, sustainable development frameworks and best practices
- Developer advocacy including technical writing, presentations, tutorials, etc.
- Pushing boundaries and exploring new design spaces
I’ve worked for:
Beyond games, I’d also love to get into some weird, creative, artistic stuff where the challenges are fresh and the solutions aren’t already known. Interactive museum installations? Avant garde art shows? Game technology pipelines for film? Responsive live music visualizations? Let’s talk!
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 strongly preferred; 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.
Bungie
Design Lead • January 2020-June 2024 • Destiny 2
I led a team that drove design and tech standardization efforts on Destiny 2. We produced frameworks and best practices for both creative design and concrete implementation, and supported designers with tools, workflows, and technical guidance for executing on those conventions.
I also led a cross-functional strike team that designed and built the Banes system that launched with the Destiny 2: Revenant expansion.
RED Games
Senior Engineer • April 2017-November 2019 • LEGO Brawls, The Raft
I was a primary contributor on LEGO Brawls, a Unity-based casual mobile brawler produced in partnership with LEGO and Apple Arcade. I was deeply involved in the initial pitch, designed the core software architecture, implemented core game systems like platforming and power-ups, integrated a deterministic rollback networking strategy for smooth, stable multiplayer games, and designed and coded our best-in-class touch controls.
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.”
Prior to that, I was technical product owner and primary contributor for The Raft, a location-based, four-player co-op VR experience produced in partnership with StarVR and deployed to the PVRK entertainment center in Dubai. I designed most of the experience and implemented the vast majority of gameplay in Unreal Engine 4 while solving technical and logistical problems associated with placing four players in VR into the same physical space.
castAR
Lead Design & Tech • July 2016-April 2017
I led a small team prototyping games in Unity for the castAR augmented reality platform. This required de-risking the technical challenges of building for hardware that was itself still in development, plus the design challenges of establishing conventions for user interaction on a brand new AR platform.
Utah Games Guild
Co-founder & Primary Coordinator • May 2014-March 2018
The Utah Games Guild was dedicated to growing and energizing the Utah independent video game development community. As co-founder I was instrumental in organizing several local indie game showcases at major expos including Salt Lake Comic Con and Salt Lake Gaming Con. I also managed a partnership with Youth Tech Hub and the city of Eagle Mountain to present the EM City Tech Jam, a one-day event designed to introduce kids and teens to game and app development, and was a supporting coordinator of our quarterly Game Nights at The Leonardo, a local STEM museum.
Kickbomb Entertainment
Founder • March 2013-April 2018 • Legacy of the Elder Star
I founded Kickbomb Entertainment and built Legacy of the Elder Star, an innovative and vibrant arcade shooter in the tradition of Gradius and R-Type, developed in Unity using C#. I did all the design, programming, writing, music, and marketing, and hired an artist for most of the art and animation. It was funded 100% independently and is currently available on Steam and itch.io for PC, Mac, and Linux.
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.”
LightBox Interactive
Lead Game Designer • January 2009-March 2013 • Starhawk, PlunderNauts
I built a seven-person design team and coordinated with other department leads in a studio of 50+ to design, develop, and ship the award-winning Playstation 3 hit Starhawk in early 2012. I developed a set of technical standards governing my team’s use of Lua for mission and game mode scripting, and designed and coded most of our in-engine level design toolset.
G4TV awarded Starhawk Best Multiplayer of E3 in 2011
After Starhawk I worked closely with our studio director to pitch a next-generation action game, then led a small multi-disciplinary team in the development of a technically ambitious Unity-based gameplay prototype centered around a large-scale dynamic destruction feature to support that pitch.
Finally, I worked with studio leadership to establish the concept, design, and business model for [PlunderNauts](/games/plundernauts.md, a whimsical space-pirate combat game and the studio’s first foray into the free-to-play mobile games market.
Incognito Entertainment
Game Designer • January 2006-December 2008 • Warhawk + DLC
As a designer for Incognito’s award-winning PS3 hit Warhawk, I scripted complex behaviors and in-game tools using a proprietary C-like scripting language. I also tuned and balanced game controls, weapons, and general mechanics, and wrote flavor text for all the game elements, as well as assisting the producer in coordinating the scripting team. I moved into a lead design role for its three DLC expansions, for which I was closely involved in the concept and product design as well as whiteboxing each of the new levels.
Gaming Target named Warhawk its PS3-Exclusive Game of the Year