David Fono Email & Phone Number

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toronto, Canada Area

- Made the move to pure engineering when the company decided to pivot in the direction of more complex games, including a persistent multiplayer environment with 3D avatars, environments, and interconnected minigames.- Managed 4 senior developers and 2 intermediate developers, running practices following Agile/Scrum methodology.- Continued to work with C-level executives to develop roadmap and engineering timeline.- Regularly attended cross-functional product planning sessions with engineering/product/design, to advise early on engineering issues, and begin breaking down features into user stories and tasks.- Collaborated with a separate iOS/Android mobile team to divide user stories between Unity and native technologies for best optimization.- Proactively tracked QA reports and communicated with mobile and backend teams to triage and debug issues promptly.- Attended weekly triage sessions for QA issues to maintain an updated backlog, and elevate issues into weekly sprint tasks.- Helped architect the new multiplayer environment within Photon Quantum, a sophisticated ECS-based networking system designed for high scalability and performance.- Helped implement a full-body avatar editor that allows you to choose customizations in 10 different areas on the body, and adjust blend shapes in 4 different dimensions. - Helped to add 9 unique customizable 3D home spaces, with options to change furniture, wall colors, floor colors, VFX, lighting, and skybox colouring.- Helped to add 5 unique 3D “open spaces” where new users could meet each other, including spatial audio. - Helped to architect a full-body avatar editor in Unity that allows you to choose customizations in 10 different areas on the body, and adjust blend shapes in 4 different dimensions.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

- Joined the company as one of the first post-seed hires, to develop new games inside a Houseparty-like app, acting as an engineer on the games as well as the product manager.- Collaborated directly with founders to develop and execute on the roadmap, eventually leading to the app reaching #2 in social apps on the iOS App Store (US), with up to 170k DAU.- Managed 3 developers and 2 artists, running practices following Agile/Scrum methodology.- Built and shipped five 2D multiplayer games (with Photon PUN as a backend.)- Maintained a backlog corresponding to the roadmap, and elevated issues into weekly sprint tasks.Sourced and managed external contractors, including asset artists, and sound designers.- Built and shipped five 2D multiplayer games within the app.- Released one minigame from the app as a standalone game on the app store. It currently has a rating of 4.7 over 1.3k reviews in the iOS App Store (US).- Developed a plan to incorporate analytics into games and prepared biweekly reports for the CEO.- Began an initiative to study user behaviour in games via remote playtesting.- Wrote integration code in C to connect to the videochat provider, and integrate video directly into Unity games.- Created an internal framework for synchronizing game-state logic across clients predictably and responsively.- Created a CI/CD process using Github Actions and game.ci to create testable builds and release to app stores.

Toronto, Canada Area

- Helped create an FDA-cleared brain function assessment platform, consisting of a mobile app for taking tests and a web app for health-care providers to track results.- Managed an intermediate developer.- Implemented and maintained web frontend & backend as a Dockerized MERN stack running on AWS.- Managed in-app subscriptions by integrating RevenueCat, and registration/authorization with Auth0.- Created a CI/CD process using Unity Cloud Build to create testable builds and release to app stores.- Worked closely with product manager to plan the roadmap, providing engineering estimates and offering suggestions.- Triaged QA issues alongside the product manager.

Toronto

Oversaw all technical development and decisions at a digital agency, supervising a team of 2 technical staff plus contractors.SELECTED PROJECTS Together Tales: Series of analog kids books with digital activities controlled by parents via a web app.- Led the design and development of 15+ minigames in multiple cross-platform apps (built as web apps using PixiJS, and converted to iOS/Android using Cordova). - Liaised with book authors to develop concept and script for interactive story components.- Nominee, Best Original Digital Media Production, 2016 Canadian Screen Awards- Nominee, Best Interactive Content for Kids, 2016 Rockie Awards- Finalist, 2015 BookTech Company of the YearRival Books of Aster: Multiplayer digital collectable card game on iPad/PC.- Developed iOS version, and later ported to a Windows/Mac version with Steam integration (Unity).- Led development of the game design document and maintained throughout project.- Built interactive data-driven visualizations for the management and balancing of 200+ cards (Node/Express).Max & Shred Games: Companion web-based games for YTV.- Built a series of 6 web-based games (PixiJS) over the course of several years.- Worked with producers to develop and pitch game concepts.Home to Win: Companion website for HGTV.- Created “Design a Room” tool that allows realtime visualization of different styles within 3D panoramas, as well as the on-demand generation of customized walkthrough videos based on user choices (Node/Express).- Winner, Best Interactive Non-Fiction, 2016 Digi Awards

Toronto

Co-founder of a startup experience design firm.Direct and implement all digital products, and work with other founders to design and develop interactive components of live experiences.SELECTED PROJECTSShadowfall: A 1-day event held at NASA Ames Research Center and hosted by Autodesk; I created interactive activities hosted on large-screen displays, primarily developed in Flash.ZED.TO: An series of interactive theatrical events over the course of 6 months; I designed the interactive components, including a persistent online story universe consisting of multiple websites and social media. (Winner, Best Cross Platform Fiction, 2012 Digi Awards)

Toronto

- Designed and built a hybrid iPad/board game to teach kids about online privacy issues, with a grant from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.- Created a locative game for Perth's ByteMe Festival, where players tracked down BlueTooth nodes across the city to unlock a story about the city.- Developed an SMS-based game for Curtin University's Open Day festival, which had visitor solving situated puzzles across the campus.- Ran a game on Twitter as a buildup to the Edge of the Web conference in Perth, and an SMS-based team-building game at the actual conference. - And more! (This list is pretty old.)

- Led development on 4 major online entertainment projects, consisting of over 20 sophisticated Flash games and applications.- Worked closely with other developers to manage software architecture; with artists to manage asset workflows on projects with substantial graphical requirements; and with producers on project planning and scheduling. Collaborated with the entire team to effectively respond to evolving project requirements.-Contributed to all stages of project lifecycles, from idea conception and requirements analysis, to design and development.- Led and/or contributed to game design and interaction design on all interactive project components.- Took initiative in writing detailed functional specifications for large projects.

Independently developed web design curriculum, a 5-week course teaching basic design, HTML, CSS, and PHP skills; trained local staff on curriculum.Coordinated development of for-hire web design services by local staff, and led initial consultation with clients.Commended by management for turning Fantsuam Foundation into the “local expert” on web development.

Conceived, designed, prototyped, and evaluated a system for collaborative multimedia composition on mobile phones.Designed a trial study for the prototype, and deployed to six groups of external users in order to analyze effects on sociability. Presented and pitched project to staff across the organization several times.Authored a write-up of the project, which won the Best Short Paper Award at the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Work.

Independently conducted research in the field of human computer interaction.Helped to develop prototypes of cutting edge eye-tracking technology, some of which were featured on major North American TV networks (ABC, Discovery, Space.) Performed several laboratory usability studies to evaluate novel technology.Co-authored two long papers and two short papers for the ACM CHI conference, one short paper for the ACM UIST conference, and one short paper for the ACM Workshop on Continuous Archival and Retrieval of Personal Experiences.

Developed first stages of web-based architecture and interface for an intelligent peer-to-peer distribution system.

Built Internet storefront, a robust e-commerce system powered by Java Servlets and connected to a MySQL database, as well as numerous interactive applications for user access.Created user interface artwork, product logo, and manufacturing artwork for flagship software.

Msc, Human-Computer Interaction

Bsc, Computer Science