James Murff Email & Phone Number

Bellevue, Washington, United States

Team: Premium ContentI am a lead on the quality process for gun skins. Notable lines I led include Champions 2022/2023/2024, Chronovoid, Valiant Hero, and Araxys.Accomplishments- Complete upgrade of the testing methodology to emphasize modular cases and flexible schedules- Rewriting our onboarding process to enable more rapid learning for new team members- Working closely with vendor teams to ensure a high quality bar and good team morale

Systems design and production on Jagged Hearts, a tactics RPG about revolution. I worked with the project lead on designing the game's various systems, and implementing content for those systems in Unity using a combination of C# and Lua

Greater Seattle Area

I wore three hats at this position:Software Test Engineer- Create test plans, manage testing needs, and perform tests- Work directly with developers to identify underlying causes through a combination of testing and stack tracing- Provide material for social media advertising, including narrative snippets and game footageRelease Manager- Kicking off and verifying builds- Updating backends and ensuring they work- Collating and presenting initial patch notes (further refined by community manager)Narrative Design- Lore and backstories to guide public-facing narrative writing- Champion descriptions, both functional and narrative

Bellevue, Seattle

Teams: Niantic (Pokemon GO, Ingress Prime)Accomplishments:- Established training standard for new hires- Created team documentation for all ongoing projectsPrimary Responsibilities- Leading strike teams to complete deliverables- Interviewing new team candidates alongside the team lead- Smoke, regression, ad-hoc, and focus testing

Greater Seattle Area

Teams: Rewards, Mounts, Creatures (Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire), General (Mobile)I was an embed on several different teams at ArenaNet. While there, I wrote test plans, performed manual testing, managed outsourcer testing, organized playtests, wrote and executed automated tests, and worked directly with developers to ensure high product quality.Accomplishments- Guided QA for the Mounts feature for Path of Fire from pre-production to release- Established Rewards documentation standard for all GW2 rewards systems- Created triage processes to hit deadlines while accommodating developer needsPrimary Responsibilities- Writing test plans and other documentation- Collaborating directly with developers on QA tool implementation- Gathering and triaging feedback- Organizing and leading playtests- Managing outsourcer workflow and time estimates- Smoke, regression, ad-hoc, and directed testing where appropriate

Teams: Live Support, Guild Wars 2: Heart of ThornsAccomplishments- Established and maintained live support documentation standard- Worked on Heart of Thorns from pre-production through to release- Regularly led and mentored teams of less-experienced testersPrimary Responsibilities- Smoke, regression, ad-hoc, and directed testing- Investigation of live issues- Leading testers in test execution- Commerce and web testing

Accomplishments- Guided editorial direction during the site's most active and visible period- Established editorial best practices to give writers good mentorship while maintaining deadline requirements- Widely regarded as the most comprehensive EVE news source during this time periodPrimary Responsibilities- Management and mentoring of writers- Staffing editorial positions- Determining overall vision and direction of content- Writing and editing content

Seattle

Beat: Indie Games, MMOs- Writing reviews, editorials, and other features- Convention coverage

Greater Seattle Area

Testing for a variety of projects

Greater Seattle Area

Projects: Battle Nations, Trade Nations, MetalstormAccomplishments- Established and maintained test case database and case standards- Worked on Battle Nations through from pre-production to launch as Z2's most successful game (until Paradise Bay)Primary Responsibilities- Writing and updating test cases for clarity and ease of use- Testing Battle Nations and other projects- Collaborating closely with development team to ensure quality

Sites: Massively, BigDownloadAccomplishments- Promoted indie games and covered them long before other major sites did- Maintained a weekly column on freeware games for three yearsPrimary Responsibilities- Writing regular columns on MMO design (Massively) and indie games (BigDownload)- Writing reviews, news, and misc features

Managing a team to populate and maintain a database of gadgets.

Tested games, maintained bug database, provided feedback.