Michael Hamilton                The Woodlands, TX, 77381 • 310.866.1023 • mike@m2tm.net

Personal GitHub | https://github.com/Devacor | Recent Work has been in professional/hidden GitLab or P4 Repositories

 Profile

Technical leader and mentor with 15 years in game development, combining deep gameplay engineering expertise with a strong track record of building and inspiring high-performing teams. Proven ability to guide cross-functional teams in delivering scalable gameplay systems, high-performance netcode, and optimized game architecture. Extensive experience across AAA, mobile, and indie projects.

Key Highlights of My Experience:

• Technical Leadership - Managed 8 engineers on Covet Fashion, a $75M/year live-service title.
• Rollback Netcode - Engineered deterministic rollback gameplay for MultiVersus, Rushdown Revolt, and Icons: Combat Arena.
• Game Engine Development - Built a 2D game engine in C++ from scratch, including a scene graph, netcode + RPC layer, asset management, and UI systems. Have worked closely with Unreal Engine 5’s source code, and Cocos2Dx.
• 3D Character Editor - Created a 3D character creation pipeline for HotHead games, and owned the Dragon Age 2 Character Creation Screen.
• Full Development Lifecycle - I have helped multiple projects go from prototype to launch, worked on both box products and live service games, and have helped grow teams at critical points to support ongoing development at different points in the development lifecycle.
• Core Systems & Optimization - Developed resource management, object pooling, networking, and rendering systems across multiple projects.
• Algorithm Design - Engineered a novel memory defragmentation routine for Need for Speed: Most Wanted, optimizing track streaming.

My leadership philosophy is built on identifying clear goals and desired outcomes, reducing ambiguity through open communication, and aligning individual contributors with stakeholder objectives. I strive to create a supportive environment where developers can grow their skills, take ownership, and advance their careers while working toward a shared vision.

In my personal time, I enjoy programming, reading, sculpting, and gaming. I stay up-to-date with modern C++ advancements and industry trends, ensuring that I remain at the forefront of my craft and can effectively mentor my team in best practices.

 Skills

Languages/Frameworks
Unreal Engine, C++, Unity, C#, Solidity, Cocos2dx, Objective C, PHP, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, SQL.

Activities
Programming, Sculpting, 2d Illustration, Gaming (Was Diamond League of Legends, and Grand Master in Wild Rift)

Released Titles (Old -> New)
Vampirism Beast, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Dragon Age 2, Tiny Pets, Tiny Monsters, Tiny Village, Family Guy: Quest For Stuff, Big Win Sports (Amazon Ports), Boom Boom Soccer, Boom Boom Football, Tap My Katamari, Taste Buds, Charm King (Unity Port), Icons: Combat Arena, Covet Fashion, Rushdown Revolt, MultiVersus

 Work Experience

Player First Games / Warner Bros. Games, (Remote while in Texas)

Senior Software Engineer

June 2023 -> Present

• Joined the gameplay engineering team as the 3rd hire just after the MultiVersus beta was taken offline for a complete rewrite of the game code to support deterministic rollback.
• Implemented a deterministic scene graph using fixed point math to support all movement/scaling/rotating within the game and seamlessly work with both our rollback engine, and Unreal Engine's own scene graph. All fixed point operations with this system had to be consistent with Unreal Engine’s own transform operations.
• Implemented rollback support for several core Unreal Engine features such as curves, and helped refine our rollback enabled animation system.
• Worked with the designers on the character team various character move development like Stripe's buzz saw (which hugs arbitrary geometry as it attaches to walls or platforms), assisted with Jake's stretch move, and many others.
• Supported the designers on the map team with various feature requests such as dynamic level behaviors on Dexter's Lab, moving platform support, and various important hooks for characters interacting with surfaces in the game like bounce pads or wall clinging.
• Achieved significant optimization and performance wins post-launch in various systems, one of the most interesting examples was better load balancing of our rollback serialization across threads.
  

Vortex Games, (Remote while in Texas)

Software Architect Consultant

July 2022 -> February 2023 (8 Months, Studio Ran out of Funding)

• Joined following Vortex Games' acquisition of the Icons: Combat Arena code base (which I worked on earlier).
• Participated in external VC funding discussions as a prospective CTO candidate.
• Worked with Unity/C# on Rushdown Revolt implementing various gameplay features including a king of the hill mode called flashpoint.
• Refactored their net code and lobby system to improve stability during match making.
• Improved network code for the rollback system by a factor of 2-4x from 4 frames delay to 1-2 depending on location/connection quality.
• Set up the Jenkins build server for automated builds and steam beta branch deployment.
• Took on web store development and lead duties when our web lead left, ramped up on Node/React and successfully launched several skin sales and the closed beta code sale.
• Funding ultimately did not materialize.

Snap Jaw, (Hayward CA -> The Woodlands TX)

CTO/Co-Founder

June 2021 -> Present

• Co-founded Snap Jaw LLC, a profitable independent art studio.
• Oversee business operations, payroll (via Gusto), and order flow during evenings/weekends.
• Developed a custom fabrication pipeline using ZBrush & 3D printing for latex mask molds.
• Built scalable production workflows, maintaining high quality & customer satisfaction.

Glu, (San Francisco CA: 800 Howard Street, 94103)

Lead Client Engineer -> Client Engineering Manager (Promoted)

November 2018 - June 2021 (2 years 8 months)

• Promoted from Lead to Engineering Manager after 3 months. Managed 4 in-house & 4 remote engineers.
• Led major refactors of Covet Fashion’s legacy codebase, addressing threading & network callback issues for dramatic stability & maintainability improvements.
• Developed and maintained a technical roadmap for the extensive legacy refactor, increasing feature development velocity by ~100%.
• Rebuilt trust between engineering and production. When I joined, trust between teams was severely strained—through clear communication and team restructuring, I helped establish a collaborative and productive relationship between all departments.
• Defined technical specifications & guided features from concept to launch.
• Organized sprint retrospectives, feature scoping and design meetings, and other structural discussions to ensure work was well defined and scoped to each sprint.
• Ensured team alignment & career growth through 1:1s, mentoring, and goal setting.

Wavedash, (Oakland CA: 344 20th Street, 94612)

Senior Software Engineer - Gameplay | Tools Lead

December 2017 - Oct 2018 (11 Months, Studio Shut Down)

• Launched Icons: Combat Arena on steam in North America.
• Assisted our technical director in a hands-on lead capacity with several features on the client team. I created technical specifications, tasked out work, and assisted in guiding features to launch readiness.
• Developed a system for animating material properties in game, allowing glowing swords, flashing characters, and an interface for our VFX artist and designers to integrate and time these effects with character’s moves.
• Lead development with another engineer for the in-game store and equipment system, provided direction and support and coordinated with product owners to get the feature to launch. Worked full-stack on both client and network elements of this feature.
• Dramatically improved performance of Icons. I defined and set up our minimum specification computer, and worked with artists and assets and optimized code to hit 60 fps on that machine (started at 12 fps).
• Developed Perfupple. A tool to copy changes between streams in perforce in a more art and design friendly way and streamline workflow.

PlayQ, (Santa Monica CA: 1540 2nd Street, 90401)

Senior Software Engineer

March 2015 - December 2017 (1 year 11 months)

• Acted the first in house senior engineer on Taste Buds and helped build and lead the team to work on it to completion.
• Implemented a variety of features across all systems in the game client and established the core architecture and several fundamental systems upon which the game was built as our team expanded.
• Supported continual feature development after taking the game from its first days of development all the way to worldwide launch.
• Worked on porting Charm King from Cocos2d-x to Unity. Integrated many of the in game events and Facebook SDK.

Bandai Namco Vancouver, (Vancouver BC)

Senior Software Engineer

March 2015 - February 2016 (1 year 1 month)

• Acted as the only gameplay engineer on an unreleased prototype of a MOBA which included hero vs ai controlled hero combat with skillshots, auto attacks, and minions similar to games like League of Legends.
• Developed an in-house google sheets driven metadata system used in-house to drive data driven development and support A/B testing.
• Launched Tap My Katamari: ad integration and feature development.
• Worked as the team lead engineer on a now cancelled title which consisted of procedurally generated levels single player tile based real time combat and movement.

Hothead Games, (Vancouver BC)

Software Engineer

November 2013 - March 2015 (1 year 5 months)

• Ported a collection of 8 mobile Big Win Sports games to Amazon’s Store.
• Learned C#, Unity, NGUI, and later Unity UI to work on Boom Boom Soccer.
• Created the team texture generator and 3d character generator, which allows swappable parts to be combined into one model. Extended this in-game tool to create a stand-alone tool as well.

TinyCo, (San Francisco CA, Vancouver BC)

Senior Software Engineer -> Lead Software Engineer (Promoted)

July 2011 - October 2013 (2 years 4 months)

• Acted as lead engineer on Tiny Pets & Tiny Monsters where I organized a team of 5 engineers for several months.
• Worked on Tiny Village, Tiny Chef, and Family Guy: Quest for Stuff.
• I developed our C++ written interview screening test and assisted with the hiring process.
• Tech: Objective C++ with our custom engine (Griffin) and Cocos2dx, Python, SQL

BioWare (EA), (Edmonton AB) - Software Engineer - May 2010 - May 2011 (1 year 1 month)

• Worked on Dragon Age 2 as a UI Programmer (Character Gen Screen and more) C++, Actionscript, DAScript

Squareflo New Media, (Regina SK) - Lead Programmer - May 2008 - Oct 2009 (1 year 6 months)

• Developed the Squareflo CMS which powered over 40 websites. HTML/CSS - Javascript - PHP - MySQL

BlackBox (EA), (Vancouver BC) - Co-op Software Engineer - October 2005 - May 2006 (8 months)

• Worked on Need for Speed: Most Wanted - created a new defragmentation routine for the memory pool. C++

 Personal Projects

SnapJaw LLC Art Studio (ZBrush, 3D Printing, Javascript/PHP/HTML/CSS)
Co-founded Snap Jaw, a successful independent art studio and game development project, managing operations, payroll, and team leadership in my off-hours. Developed and launched a fabrication pipeline for 3D-printed latex masks. https://snapjaw.net

Bindstone  (C++, SDL, OpenGL)
Built a custom C++ game engine from scratch using low-level libraries, targeting iOS, Android, and Windows. Developed a working prototype with core gameplay mechanics. While not in active development, this project reinforced my expertise in engine architecture, cross-platform development, and low-level optimization.: http://bindstone.online
https://github.com/Devacor/Bindstone

Vampirism Beast (Jass/WC3 World Editor) (2007-2009)
Warcraft 3 map (mod) which reached the top 5 most hosted maps when it first came out on Blizzard's western server out of over 10,000 (according to mapgnome.org). 

 Education

University of Regina
• Acted as Computer Science Student Society (CSSS) president