About

Skills

I am an Unreal and Unity developer with experience in C# , C++, and Python. I have familiarity with both Git and Perforce version control, and am able to support others in their usage.

I am able to define and maintain appropriate infrastructure for a game development studio, and have proven this in my role as Technical Director for Auroch Digital.

I have a rounded skill set, capable of implementing Gameplay, UI, Audio, Animation, Custom Shaders, and most other game requirements.

Experience

FEBRUARY 2019 – PRESENT

Auroch Digital, Bristol, United Kingdom

Technical Director SEPTEMBER 2022 – PRESENT

Technical Director for a studio of 90-120 staff, responsible for managing the Code department (25-35), with assistance from Lead Programmers. Typically directly managing 8 staff, including Senior, Lead, and Principal Programmers and the Studio’s Build Engineer.
9 games as Technical Director of Auroch Digital, including 2 announced and unreleased games, and 2 other unannounced titles.
Providing Technical Direction for multiple simultaneously running Unreal and Unity projects in various stages. This included technical support and advice, project management, and staff allocations. Minimum 4 projects at one time, maximum 8 projects.
Recruitment and hiring of staff members for the Code department including interviews and assessment of technical tests.
Working closely with other Discipline Directors to avoid friction between development teams and prioritising work appropriately as per the direction of the studio.
Active contributions to projects codebase, as well as supporting and educating staff in technical areas where required, in both the Code and Art disciplines.
Responsible for the management and maintenance of the Studio infrastructure in a period of migration. Including Version Control migration, staff hardware wipes, and Microsoft tenant migration. During this process, I maintained the ability for staff to work remotely across multiple countries with a downtime of only one day.

Unity Lead DECEMBER 2021 – SEPTEMBER 2022

Lead Programmer on Mars Horizon 2: The Search for Life before taking on the Technical Director role and handing responsibilities over to other members of the team. Researched technical solutions and set the technical direction of the project to meet requirements set out by the Studio Director and Creative Director.
Assisting the Technical Director with any requirements associated with projects created in Unity.
Recruitment and hiring for staff members alongside the Technical Director, including assessment of Unity technical tests.
Educating staff on Git and version control best practices within Unity, creating and sharing accessible documentation designed for all disciplines and technical skill sets.

Principal Programmer MARCH 2021 – NOVEMBER 2021

Primarily on Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, establishing technical systems to meet the requirements set out by the Creative Director and Technical Director whilst paying homage to the retro boomer shooters that Boltgun was paying homage to.
Responsible for implementing a binary serialialisation system for Unreal that would allow properties to be serialised based on the “SaveGame” flag to allow for fast saving and loading, with an emphasis on supporting quick save and quick load functionality.
Responsible for defining the approach to rendering both the weapons and the enemies, including working with the Art team to establish an appropriate import pipeline and tooling to reduce workflow friction.
Responsible for defining systems to improve AI behaviour with an intent to produce AI that behave similar to AI in other games in the genre.
Responsible for investigating early multiplatform feasibility by testing and profiling on the lowest spec target platform (Nintendo Switch).

Game Programmer FEBRUARY 2019 – MARCH 2021

Primarily worked on Mars Horizon and The Colonists: Console Edition whilst also providing support to other staff on their projects when necessary.
In Mars Horizon, responsible for implementation of many game features including UI implementation, tween animations, research and resources, camera controls and framing, sequencing and animations, and more.
In The Colonists: Console Edition, responsible for identification and fixes of memory leaks on the Nintendo Switch platform, optimisations to CPU and GPU to improve performance across all platforms, total re-implementation of the game UI based on redesigns, and gamepad implementations.

OCTOBER 2017 – FEBRUARY 2019

Atkins, Bristol, United Kingdom

Immersive Media Developer

Part of a small team using Unity to build small applications for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction teams in Atkins. This team was building 60+ applications a year.
Created and took ownership of a point cloud rendering system, including the custom geometry shader to render the point clouds.
Took ownership over other data based applications used to improve visualisations of traffic data and aircraft part availability.
Many instances of VR based applications being created for engineering and architectural visualisations.

NOVEMBER 2014 – OCTOBER 2017

Apak Group, Yate, United Kingdom

Junior Developer SEPTEMBER 2016 – OCTOBER 2017

Working on legacy systems in finance software, using Python 2.4, Java, and KARL (an inhouse language built on ZOPL). Developed new features based on client requirements.
Part of the on-call team, responding to system failures during end of day financial processing.
Whilst in this role, I was completing my second year of my part-time Computer Science MSc at the University of Bristol.

Service Helpdesk Technician NOVEMBER 2014 – AUGUST 2016

Part of the Operations department, providing first line and second line support on issues.
Working with Linux to maintain servers, identify problems, extract logs to support the on-call team as they responded to issues. It was this team’s responsibility to ensure that backups and day-to-day requirements were met to continue business operations.
Whilst in this role, I began my first year at my part-time Computer Science MSc at the University of Bristol.

Education

2015 – 2017

University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom – Computer Science (MSc)

This degree was completed part-time whilst working for Apak Group – it was a self-funded MSc Conversion into Computer Science. This was a high-intensity course to cover low-level concepts in Computer Science, and establishing a skillset in C based languages, Object Oriented languages, and web based technologies.

2011 – 2014

University of South Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom – Music Technology (BSc)

The Music Technology BSc was focused on audio recording and production, DAW expertise, acoustics and digital signal processing. Additionally, this course provided some media elements to provide a rounded skill set for its graduates.