I have been a game dev for almost 2 decades but my biggest flaw has always been not saving my work in a portfolio. But this is my journey so far (in 2600 words or less).In 2006 I discovered a new and upcoming game engine called Unity. Coming from Torque, my friend and I were amazed at how easily and quickly we could put something cool together in the engine. After a few forum posts and getting to know the 3 creators of Unity, they asked us to help them make a tech demo for the next version of Unity. In exchange, we asked for no money but a couple of licenses to their engine. This demo ended up being the "Tropical Paradise" terrain demo for Unity 2.0. My first official solo game was released in 2011 for the iPad. It was called "Project Stardust". It was a free game and received a few thousand downloads. The project was a lot of fun but it was more about proving to myself that I WAS a game developer and not just some imposter who wanted to pretend to make games. It was the first true end to end project that taught me how even simple games can be a monumental task to complete.From 2011 to 2019 I worked as a freelance dev while working at Boeing as a Maintenance Mechanic. It was dirty work, and I was looking for a way out.In 2019 I got my first break and finally took the leap to leave my stable job and work as a contractor at Microsoft. To me, being a contractor at that stage of my career was a huge risk but it was a risk that paid off exponentially. While at Microsoft I worked on several internal XR projects for the HoloLens. Our team was small and I was the only developer but we made it work. There eventually came the need from the team for additional 3D artists. My boss an co-worker remembered that I had mentioned Maya experience, so they asked if I would be willing to make a few models... In C4D... I must have done okay because that led me to more and more 3D modeling, animation, and rendering tasks! In January 2020 I was offered an FTE position and became an official Microsoft employee!From January to July 2023 I worked with the same HoloLens team before receiving a layoff notice mid 2020. Luckily I managed to find another role within the company in AHSI Comms. There I wore many hats and worked as a photographer, videographer, editor, motion graphics artist, and more. In 2023 I was laid off yet again! Unfortunately this time I was not so lucky and ended up having to part with Microsoft.In 2023 I was introduced to an amazing startup called Ace where I am currently working as a Technical Lead!