Transitioned into an IC architect role to have a more direct impact on the product. Led a reliability initiative which introduced a new SLO framework for uniformly tracking availability across our services and identified improvements leading to significant reductions in monthly downtime. Presented and recruited support for a simplified public API design. Collaborated on numerous architectural changes and performance optimizations which enabled PlayFab to scale to over 10X traffic since acquisition, supporting large titles such as Minecraft, Halo, DOOM Eternal, and Flight Simulator.

Managed four teams (APIs, web portal, SDKs, developer tools) totaling 25 engineers through the critical post-acquisition integration phase. Helped merge the incoming PlayFab engineering team with two existing Microsoft teams to form the significantly larger Azure PlayFab group. Oversaw the integration of PlayFab technology with internal Microsoft tools, development processes, and deployment systems. Advocated for and succeeded in retaining key aspects of the PlayFab product through this integration process. Achieved above average manager survey results and below average team attrition.

Started the company with a mission to equip game studios of all sizes with the tools and backend services they need to build, launch, and operate successful live games. Was responsible for product architecture and technical direction, hiring and management of the engineering team, and development of major portions of the code base. Led our engineering team in building a successful product with a comprehensive suite of game APIs hosted on AWS, a set of SDKs targeting all popular game engines, and a game management web portal.Was the key technical representative of the company in numerous customer deals and in technical due diligence for seed and series A funding rounds and for the company acquisition by Microsoft, which closed in early 2018. At the time of acquisition, PlayFab had grown to serve several thousand customers with a combined player base of over 70 million monthly active users.

Designed, developed, and operated the game studio’s backend services for player accounts, virtual goods, geo-distributed multiplayer servers, payment integration, game client distribution, and more. The services utilized resources in AWS and Softlayer to power free-to-play titles on PC and mobile, such as Super Monday Night Combat, Planetary Annihilation, and Toy Rush.

Developed web service APIs and SQL database schemas behind the contact lists and sharing permissions for Hotmail and MSN Messenger, used by over 250 million people.While on a concept development team under Ray Ozzie, I contributed to projects such as Live Clipboard (copy/paste for the web), Live Mesh (cross-device file and desktop sharing), and docs.com (document collaboration on Facebook).Filed and granted numerous patents, including one for the FeedSync algorithm (multi-master sync over RSS feeds).