Projects

Work in Progress Alert! 👋 This is just a highlight reel loosely based on my CV - consider it the director's cut that's still being edited! Some shorter gigs and the "I could tell you but then I'd have to delete your browser history" projects have been tactfully omitted. Check back later as I continue polishing this gaming and tech adventure timeline!

Fiiish! (Personal Project)

2009 - Present

Fiiish! is a side project that has been ongoing since a GameJam in 2009. It is a casual, relaxed endless swimmer, and my goto project to test new technology and ideas. Stay tuned for the deep dive - the full story of this finned adventure is swimming its way here soon!

FIFA Women's World Cup Game (Matchday)

January 2023 - September 2023

As the Tech Lead of Matchday's Barcelona Game Studio I was responsible for building the studio from the ground up. Hiring core engineers, setting up systems & processes, implementing best practices, and creating the software foundation; while closely working with other department leads on building the Game Studio, and ensuring a positive, productive culture.

For the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup we built an official accompanying web game, with the frontend being developed with a 3rd party studio, and the backend developed by the in-house backend team (me). We delivered a fully working game within a very tight timeline, within budget, and above and beyond the initial scope.

Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Remaster (Stellar Entertainment)

May 2020 - March 2021

As the Technical Director on the Need For Speed Hot Pursuit remaster I guided the team through a tightly scheduled project hit by a global pandemic, leading to over delivering, ahead of schedule.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster (Stellar Entertainment)

November 2020 - December 2022

As the Technical Director on the Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster I worked with the business side on cost planning, and the roadmap, identified and filled key positions, established solid processes. Leading to a 100% crunch free environment, and increased talent retention.

Unannounced AAA Arcade Racing Game (Stellar Entertainment)

October 2021 - December 2022

As the Technical Director on an unannounced AAA Arcade Racing game, I built an engineering team from the ground up, helped create the foundation for a new AAA IP, and worked closely with the Design team during the pitching phase, ensuring funding by a major publisher.

Mixed Reality Projects (Microsoft)

July 2017 - April 2020

As the Technical Director and first hire of Microsoft Mixed Reality Studio Berlin I worked closely with the studio head to hire the right people, establish strong processes, and lay solid foundations for efficient development of various Mixed Reality projects while ensuring the top quality expected from the customers and partners.

As the Head of Tools & Libraries I created a cross-studio, cross-continent team to reduce development time by reusing common components, and establish best practices based on shared patterns.

November 2016 - July 2017

As the technical director for Dragon City I managed various critical situations with the live game, while slowly guiding the team through analyzing and replacing the most fragile parts of the organically grown legacy codebase. This included a lot of coaching and rearranging the team while keeping the leadership updated on the "how" and "why".

Game Platform Infrastructure (PlayRaven)

October 2014 - November 2016

As the Head of Backend Development I was responsible for backend hiring, education, establishing workflows and best practices while still staying deep within the development and operations to keep the platform stable and agile.

I planned, implemented and deployed a highly scalable and available platform for multiple games and was responsible for bootstrapping the Operations-team, ensuring well-defined and documented processes and best practices, stable operations, extensive monitoring and alarming.

Magic-Service Platform (MagicInternet)

January 2013 - July 2014

As the CTO I ensured a smooth transition from the existing startup culture into new corporate structures by optimizing technical skills and ensuring better processes. On the technical side I enabled and empowered the teams to rebuild the platform based on a clean architecture while keeping it stable enough to handle millions of daily requests, staying within budget and reducing operational costs.

Royal Revolt (Keen Games)

January 2012 - December 2012

As a gameplay and engine developer on "Royal Revolt", I concentrated on opening iOS as a new target platform for the broad Keen tool and library base, while keeping it also open for other mobile platforms.

Sacred 3 UI System (Keen Games)

November 2011 - January 2012

I helped to architect and prototype the UI system for "Sacred 3".

Star Trek: Infinite Space (Keen Games)

December 2010 - November 2011

As the backend lead for "Star Trek: Infinite Space" I helped to architect and implement a highly scalable and available backend infrastructure for a space MMORPG with strong action elements.

Warpfire (Gameforge Productions)

July 2009 - August 2010

During the second phase of the development of "Warpfire" (a space-based MMO) I helped to fix bottlenecks and patch in overlooked features with minimal effort while keeping a clean base for future work (aka "last minute hacks done right").

J2EE-Framework for Browser Games (Gameforge Productions)

May 2009 - July 2009

During the prototyping phase of a "J2EE-Framework for browser based games" I ensured a scalable architecture and laid a sound foundation for this base technology.

Anno: Create a New World (Keen Games)

December 2007 - March 2009

As the lead programmer for Anno Wii & DS I ensured on-time development of a high quality game under serious time constraints. I laid a sound foundation during the prototyping phase and kept the team motivated and focused during the whole development.

Jamie Oliver's: What's Cooking (Keen Games)

May 2007 - November 2007

As a technical consultant for "Jamie Oliver's: What's Cooking" I planned and implemented the client-server system, resulting in a secure, reliable and scalable infrastructure. In the second phase I designed and implemented the whole "PDA/Cookbook" part of the game in close cooperation with the producing team. The cookbook-part was considered the best part of the game in most reviews.

PS3 Linux Development (IBM)

2003 - 2006

As a technical team lead I was one of the first to develop on a CellBE based system. I worked closely with the firmware team of the "CellBlade" to ensure clean and complete interfaces for the Linux kernel, then moved on to bootstrap the compiler and clean up the needed patches to allow upstream integration. Later I worked in the kernel team, developing sample workloads and interfaces for the SPU, especially the SPU-PPU communication.

SCEA Gaming on Demand Servers (IBM/Sony)

2002 - 2003

Worked with Sony in San Diego on a platform to allow better utilization for gaming servers. I led my team to develop the prototype, which allowed the average utilization to go up from ~30% to ~90%.

BB Grid (IBM)

2001 - 2002

As the architect and team lead for building a lab-wide grid to utilize idle time on desktop systems for chip development simulations, I created a successful project that ended up being utilized all over IBM. At peak times we utilized up to 50,000 desktops worldwide during the Cell SPU development.