Dan Haffner Email & Phone Number

Redmond, Wa, Us

I'm leading a team in developing a web-based product that creates promotional videos for video games. We currently utilize input from both the Steam platform and custom gameplay videos provided by our users, processing it with a combination of custom-designed media and AI tools to achieve higher quality results than would be possible with either approach independently. We released the product in May 2024 and are working to expand the breadth of both inputs and outputs to our system.

Bellevue, Wa

- Designed a scalable system for cataloguing performance data for Destiny and Destiny 2. It comprises a website, standalone tools, and maintenance services. To build this I worked with clients in engineering, art, and test to ensure their needs were met. This system saves the test team hours per day by automatically categorizing the data, and saves graphics engineers and artists time by enabling them to quickly find and identify performance issues. The system has contributed to Destiny’s expansions shipping with rock-solid framerates at reduced cost and continues to do so.- Designed and built a service to synchronize data between bug tracking systems during a critical migration between them, ensuring users could work in either system during the transition period with no data loss or downtime. This allowed different parts of the studio to transition to the new system at times of their choosing to avoid interrupting ship-critical work.- Worked with other team members to identify studio software impacted by the bug tracking system migration, create a plan for the migration, and execute it.- Performed maintenance and implemented new features for the studio’s crash reporting system, including automation of low-level debugging processes.

I started Highbrow Games in 2009 and shipped ten products for Xbox 360, Windows Phone, and Windows 8. The latest is a complex audio-based game named Project Rap, which allows players to build sentences in real-time, compete in rap battles, and create funny rap songs. While the theme of my business may be sophomoric, I take pride in creating products that are usable, unique, and of overall high quality.The majority of my focus is on writing code, followed by content creation and acquisition, and finally analyzing trends in order to best position my products for success. Below is a list of the skills and activities which I utilize to ship products, although it's difficult to encompass everything for which I'm responsible.- Creative Direction- Programming using C#, the .NET Framework, and XAML- Procuring and integrating external code- Debugging using Visual Studio- Managing source control- Designing and perfecting user interfaces- Art design/procurement and editing- Sound design and editing- Finding and learning to use new tools- Marketing and promotionCheck out the projects I've shipped in the "Projects" section!

Managed and participated in the development of automated accuracy/performance test suites for Xbox 360's Software Development Kit (XDK). Areas included graphics, audio, networking, and input (Kinect) hardware and software. This position required technical leadership around the creation and quality of test frameworks, strong and decisive management, political awareness, and working smoothly with many different teams at once.- Managed teams of up to six employees- Wrote and championed high-quality C++ code across my team and other teams.- Worked across teams to schedule and report progress- Drove sign-off on XDK releases- Developed shared cross-platform framework to bootstrap new test projects; it was eventually utilized by over 70 projects

Redmond, Wa

- Owned tests for DirectSound, DirectMusic, XACT, and support tools for Xbox and Windows (C++)- Created standard test framework and APIs for automated logging to SQL database- Created website to view the aforementioned test results- Remotely debugged test failures using the kernel debugger

San Rafael, California

[Unnamed project]: Worked on the audio engine, recorded dialog and added it to the product, and worked on a tool that allowed animators to synchronize frames of animation with audio.