Core Competencies
Technical Direction & Engineering Leadership
Team Building — 0 to 36+ Engineers
AAA Game Development (PC · Console · Mobile)
Multiplayer & MMO Backend Architecture
Live Service Design & Online Operations
Unreal Engine 5 / UE4 /UE3 (Expert)
DevOps Culture · CI/CD · Build Pipelines
Kubernetes · Docker · Cloud Infrastructure
C++ Expert · Multi-language (Go, Python, C#…)
Scrum Master · Certified Product Owner
Studio Turnaround & Project Rescue
AI Integration — Local LLM & Frontier APIs
Startup Founder · P&L Accountability
Cross-discipline Mentorship & Recruiting
Telemetry · Data Lakes · Business Intelligence
Professional Summary
Engineering leader with 30+ years in game development — from building massively multiplayer backends at Sony Online Entertainment to driving DirectX 12 implementation jointly with Microsoft and Epic Games. Shipped critically acclaimed AAA titles across PC, console, and mobile at Microsoft, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard/King, Firaxis/2K and Zenimax Online Studios. Equally effective as a hands-on technical contributor, a team-builder who has scaled organisations from zero to 36+ engineers, and a studio turnaround specialist who has repeatedly reversed failing projects into successful launches. Deep expertise in cloud-native backend architecture, CI/CD, Unreal Engine, and AI integration — with active R&D in LLM-powered NPC systems. Available for remote engineering leadership roles; comes equipped with a fully-operational personal lab (100+ CPUs, local AI, physical and network security) ready to contribute from day one.
Work Experience
Independent R&D — Unreal Engine 5 AI Systems
Self-directed Research
llama.cpp × UE5 Plugin · Local & Remote LLM Tool-calling Architecture
- Designed and built a component-based AI plugin integrating llama.cpp with Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints, data structures, and tools — supporting both locally-embedded models and remote tool-calling APIs.
- Architected a system enabling designers to define NPC behaviour, stats, and callable tools declaratively, reducing the need for hand-crafted Blueprints and shortening design iteration loops significantly.
- Delivered 100% code coverage with a full automated test suite; authored new build scripts to address UE5 gaps in coverage gating; added cook-time warning gates to surface asset issues before packaging.
Director of Engineering
9 Lives Interactive
Nyan Heroes · Hero Shooter (Unreal Engine 5, PC)
- Joined leadership team as technical anchor; set decisive direction for developer infrastructure and engineering process across the studio.
- Delivered multiple public pre-release playtests; modernised build and operations automation end-to-end.
- Architected and deployed Kubernetes backend for persistence, telemetry, and integration with PlayFab dedicated server hosting and provisioning.
- Built ElasticSearch telemetry pipeline and data lakes serving business intelligence, design instrumentation, and engineering diagnostics; defined the data science function and led its hiring process.
- Established test suite and code coverage reporting; mentored engineers in UE5, Kubernetes, build automation, Web3, and AI tooling.
- Fostered an accountability culture: weekly value-delivered summaries, regular dog-fooding sessions, and transparent reporting against goals.
Studio closure prior to public launch.
Co-Founder & Technical Lead
Playscale PTE, LTD
Stashed · C++ Distributed Build Acceleration & Work Caching (Windows)
- Founded, incorporated, and operated a software company in Singapore; held full P&L responsibility throughout its development and operational lifecycle.
- Designed and implemented a distributed C++ compiler and work-caching system for Windows; achieved revenue-positive status within 90 days of launch.
- Built marketing campaigns that continued generating installations well beyond their active windows via long-tail organic conversion.
- Integrated automated payment processing with a cloud licensing service on Google Cloud; full alerting pipeline for build, sign-up, and payment events via Slack and push notifications.
- Developed comprehensive automated test and benchmark suite (Unreal Engine, LLVM, zlib, OpenAI, and others) validating coverage, correctness, and performance.
- Beta-to-final-product launch achieved in under 12 months from initial development start.
After years of revenue-positive operation, open-source alternatives like FastBuild emerged. Company is dormant, but otherwise in good standing.
Technical Director (Contract)
THQ Nordic / Embracer Group
Stuntfest World Tour · Multiplayer Action (Unreal Engine 4, PC/Console)
- Engaged as technical turnaround lead on a project with persistent milestone failures; delivered the studio's first successful milestone within 90 days.
- Stood up external live playtesting with publisher-coordinated player feedback collection within 6 months of engagement.
- Migrated all studio development tools to a Frankfurt data centre during peak COVID remote-work disruption — Perforce backup/move/restore, Helix code review, ElasticSearch telemetry cluster; fully automated via Ansible with source control history and audit trails for security and incident reporting.
- Deployed cloud infrastructure with CI-integrated automation; persistence, simulation, and telemetry services fully live.
- Introduced UnrealInsights and performance tooling driven by real-world player telemetry; established code review gates to prevent regressions and distribute system knowledge across the team.
- Eliminated approximately 90% of active bugs through deep engine analysis and targeted floating-point/determinism debugging; accelerated CI build loops for tighter iteration cadence.
Contract objectives achieved.
Principal Engineer
Activision Blizzard / King
Unannounced Mobile Titles · Server Platform & Core Infrastructure
- Built core server and platform technology shared across King's mobile title portfolio, including business analytics instrumentation across all King titles (Candy Crush and beyond).
- Took three titles from concept to live players: matchmaking, Elo-based rankings, leaderboards, player data storage, ephemeral Redis store, and BI/tracking pipelines.
- Reduced developer and CI build times from 10–40 minutes to under 20 seconds through build acceleration work.
- Modernised codebase to current C++ standards (constexpr, compile-time hashing, etc.) and established production and technical planning workshops.
Studio closure.
Technical Director
Microsoft — Lionhead Studios
Fable Legends · Free-to-play Action RPG (Xbox One / PC)
- Led 60+ engineers; drove the studio's transition from box-retail culture to live game service delivery on Xbox One.
- Established a continuous delivery pipeline enabling cadenced, regular post-launch title updates.
- Drove and co-implemented DirectX 12 development across Microsoft and Epic Games/Unreal Engine — an industry-first contribution at the time.
- Scaled leadership processes to manage a project with hundreds of developers; educated publisher stakeholders on free-to-play business model fundamentals.
Studio closure — Lionhead Studios, part of broader European Microsoft Studios restructuring.
Technical Director
Ubisoft
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (Primary) · Assassin's Creed (Secondary)
- Turned around a project in trouble; restructured the development team by discipline for career development and cross-functionally via Scrum to eliminate silos.
- Reduced time to publish changes from 12 weeks to 10 days through production pipeline optimisation and modernised branching strategy.
- Established DevOps culture integrating IT/Operations with engineering; framed engineering objectives in P&L terms to align with business strategy and publisher stakeholders.
- Fully integrated QA and test with day-to-day development, measurably improving software stability and reducing the cost of bug remediation in production.
- Transformed team culture from cynical and defensive to collaborative — instilling a practice of "the Art of the Possible."
Remit complete; personal circumstances required departure.
Platform Director
Zenimax Online Studios
The Elder Scrolls Online · MMO Platform & Backend Services
- Built the platform backend team from 0 to 36+ developers; served simultaneously as hands-on technical contributor and team architect.
- Achieved 100% success rate promoting changes from development to production — every week, no exceptions — establishing a live service deployment gold standard.
- Embedded core DevOps fundamentals into the team culture: fast iteration, fail-fast gating, prove-it-works standards, and end-to-end automation.
Remit complete; company-wide ship alignment created a role conflict with qualified internal peers.
Lead Engineer
Firaxis Games / Take-Two Interactive / 2K Games
Sid Meier's Civilization V · X-COM: Enemy Unknown · Civ World
- Shipped Sid Meier's Civilization V; established Scrum and agile engineering practices across studio and publisher teams simultaneously.
- Dissolved the adversarial "Us vs. Them" dynamic between studio and publisher — unified production, engineering, objectives, and delivery planning into a single integrated team across multiple locations.
Post-ship promotion deferred out of courtesy to a close colleague and mentor.
Level 64 Software Engineer
Microsoft — Ensemble Studios
Age of Empires III & Expansions · Halo Wars · Project Orion
- Senior server engineer for Age of Empires MMO backend; implemented a .NET-to-C++/Unreal 3 network replication system; shipped Age of Empires III, its expansions, and Halo Wars.
- Delivered the XLSP dedicated server infrastructure for Halo Wars (console RTS).
- Established a static code analysis pipeline (lint), reducing console certification closing effort and surfacing defects at compile time.
Studio closure (Ensemble Studios); the team and I elected to finish and ship the final title before disbanding.
Lead Programmer
Sony Online Entertainment
Star Wars Galaxies · Massively Multiplayer Online
- Core developer on Star Wars Galaxies from scratch to ship in 2 years 11 months — implemented the majority of server, network, and object replication systems for an MMO backend scaling to hundreds of clustered servers.
- Reduced build-and-deployment promotion time from 6 weeks to 4 hours through automated build and deployment pipelines.
No advancement path available after 5 years as the last remaining subject-matter expert on the project.
Technical Skills
| Programming | C++ (Expert, 30 years) · Go · Python · JavaScript · C# · Java · Perl · Ruby |
| Game Engines | Unreal Engine 5 / UE4 (Expert) · Unity · Custom engine systems and toolchains |
| Cloud & Infrastructure | Kubernetes · Docker · Google Cloud Platform · AWS · Azure · Ansible · |
| Backend & Data | MMO / multiplayer server architecture · ElasticSearch · Redis · PlayFab · REST & gRPC · BI pipelines & data lakes |
| DevOps & CI/CD | Perforce / Helix · Git · Jenkins · Build acceleration & caching · Code coverage gates · Static analysis (lint) |
| AI / Machine Learning | llama.cpp · Ollama · Tool-calling LLM agents · Claude API · OpenAI API · Gemini · Local AI infrastructure |
| Leadership | Certified Scrum Master · Certified Product Owner · Technical direction · Staffing plans & recruiting · Mentorship · Studio turnaround · P&L accountability |