Profile
Hands-on engineering leader with more than 30 years in game development across 24 credited titles, combining technical direction, systems architecture, team mentorship, and direct implementation. Work has included animation technology used across the Halo franchise, creator and platform capabilities for Minecraft Bedrock, Unreal Engine foundations for Age of Empires, and animation optimizations for Gears of War 2 and Kinect.
Leadership experience ranges from focused two-person strike teams to organizations of more than 40, bringing together internal teams, external developers, and co-development partners.
Focused on players, products, and teams, with a practical approach to using technology in new ways to create memorable game experiences.
Core expertise
Leadership: Technical direction; engineering team leadership; architecture planning; mentoring; internal and external developer coordination.
Languages & engines: C++; C#; Unreal Engine; Godot; custom game engines.
Runtime systems: Animation; inverse kinematics; skeletal retargeting; animation compression; ECS simulation; rendering; multithreading; profiling; content pipelines.
Development: AI workflows; Copilot, Claude, GPT; Generative content; AI-accelerated iteration, review, testing and measurement.
Delivery: Agile development & scrum methodology; telemetry; CI/CD; test-driven development; rapid prototyping.
Platforms: PC; Xbox; Nintendo Switch; iOS; Android; VR.
Professional experience
- Principal engineering lead for the studio's central technology team, managing internal and external developers across simulation, presentation, and networking while remaining a primary engineering contributor.
- Led development of an Unreal Engine framework for Age of Empires using custom simulation, animation, and rendering techniques while balancing visual goals with lower-end hardware constraints.
- Built architecture, content pipelines, documentation, and code examples that accelerated prototyping and helped engineers become productive quickly.
- Delivered late-stage performance optimizations for Age of Mythology: Retold.
- Led engine and platform improvements delivered through monthly Minecraft Bedrock updates across mobile, VR, PC, and console and was responsible for the Bedrock engine across all hardware platforms.
- Served as lead engineer for graphics, core engine platform, and performance and stability teams; promoted telemetry, CI/CD, and test-driven development across engine groups.
- Expanded user-generated content capabilities through focused strike teams, supporting Minecraft's creator ecosystem and content marketplace.
- Lead engineer for the Minecraft Nintendo Switch port.
- Lead animation engineer for Halo 4 and Halo 5, developing facial animation, lossless compression, full-body inverse kinematics, and smooth character-motion systems.
- Member of the engineering leadership council and architecture group, reviewing and refining technical features across the Halo engine.
- Kinect Adventures engineering leadership team member, also leading early prototyping and software design for live skeletal retargeting and gesture recognition.
- Lead engineer on the Ricochet Kinect demonstration shown at E3 2009.
- Credited on patents related to real-time human motion and gesture recognition.
- Developed animation compression and runtime performance improvements for Gears of War 2 that were later incorporated into Unreal Engine 3.
- Provided technical guidance and Xbox 360 optimization support to internal and external teams on titles including Alan Wake, Mass Effect, and Too Human.
- Developed character animation systems and artist pipelines for Halo 2 and Halo 3, including inverse kinematics, bipedal/quadrupedal locomotion, and runtime content systems.
- Designed and implemented the multithreaded Xbox 360 port of the Halo engine and tools for monitoring CPU performance.
- Created automated audio-driven lip sync that gave localized dialogue its own performance without additional animation content.
- Past Tree | Director of Technology: Led engine and product development; built a proprietary 3D engine and demonstration accepted into the Xbox Incubation Program.
- ClearBand | Lead Programmer: Developed client software for a proprietary real-time video encoding and broadcast system.
- TerraGlyph Interactive | Lead Programmer: Engineering lead on Toonenstein: Dare to Scare, blending hand-drawn animation with 3D environments.
- Kinesoft | Programmer: Built porting and networking technology for Windows 95 titles with online head-to-head play.
- Viacom New Media | Artist: Created background and sprite art for Nickelodeon games.
Publications & education
- Author, Real-Time 3D Terrain Engines Using C++ and DirectX 9 (2003).
- Contributing author, Game Programming Gems, volumes 1, 2, and 3.
- Bachelor of Fine Arts, Electronic Media - Northern Illinois University.
