Cartoon drawing of my face

Jake Mitchell

@jakemitchellxyz

Overview

I build game systems from first principles; from a data-table-driven 11-tier size mechanic in UE5.3 to a fully custom C++ rendering engine using Vulkan and Signed Distance Fields with physically-accurate cone marching.

My background in software architecture carries directly into game development: I approach every game system as a scalable, data-driven design problem - parameters in tables, logic in code, nothing hardcoded in graph nodes or scene hierarchies.

I've been writing code for 16 years and building software professionally for 9 years. The engineering foundations I built across cloud systems , distributed backends , and real-time applications transfer directly to game systems work.

Certifications / Awards

University of Rochester Logo
Full-Ride Merit Scholarship

University of Rochester (2016)

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AWS Solutions Architect Certification
AWS Solutions Architect

Associate-level Certification (2020)

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eMagine Media Festival
eMagine Media Festival

1st Place Website Design (2015)

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ProMazo Fellow Program
ProMazo Fellow

Top 5% of University Talent (2018)

View Workforce →

Skills

Experience

Level

Unreal Engine

8 years

Advanced

Unity 3D

7 years

Skilled

Blender

10 years

Skilled

Photoshop

12 years

Expert

Illustrator

3 years

Skilled

JavaScript logo JavaScript

14 years

Expert

TypeScript

7 years

Expert

Python logo Python

5 years

Advanced

C++

4 years

Skilled

Vulkan

1 year

Skilled

GraphQL logo GraphQL

3 years

Advanced

SQL logo SQL

3 years

Proficient

Vite

4 years

Proficient

Relevant Projects

Interactive Narrative World Engine

Local LLM Simulation System

Personal Project

Designed an 8-node LangGraph pipeline for AI-assisted fiction: pre-response schedule reconciliation and spatial analysis ground every model response in consistent world state before generation

Fuzzy entity resolution via persistent Chroma vector stores prevents hallucinated inventory mutations; a secondary reasoning model (JSON-only, lower temperature) writes all state deltas deterministically to SQLite

Scene-aware image generation pipeline reads SQLite world state to compose diffusion prompts, select LoRAs , and choose sampler parameters entirely from structured data

Von Neumann Toy

C++ / Vulkan Space Simulation

Personal Project

Rendered an entire solar system using only 2 screen-space quads : all geometry is described as Signed Distance Fields and resolved by a Vulkan fragment shader performing cone marching for intersections, normals, shadows, and PBR lighting

Competing drone factions use swarm intelligence , convolutional neural networks , and evolutionary algorithms ; a zero-knowledge-proof consensus protocol coordinates decentralized drone communication across the swarm

Solar system data sourced from JPL Horizons SPICE , Hipparcos 2, ETOPO 2022, NOAA-20 VIIRS Black Marble, and WMM 2025 for physically accurate planetary positions, surfaces, and magnetic fields

Unannounced Horror Game

UE5.3 Multiplayer Horror Game

Personal Project

Designed a data-table-driven 11-tier size system for a UE5.3 multiplayer horror game: every movement parameter, collision profile, and physics value reads from data tables

Four-layer Blueprint inheritance hierarchy shared by players and enemies via a common size interface; size state replicated with server-RPC authority gating and notify callbacks on simulated proxies

Session layer uses a brokered peer-to-peer architecture on AWS: a lightweight broker manages matchmaking and lobby state; gameplay traffic routes through Epic Online Services without a dedicated game server

Employment History

Senior Software Engineer

Bluebook (Digital SAT) Logo

Bluebook (Digital SAT) by The College Board

(4 yrs 7 mos) Aug. 2021March 2026

Maintained and added features to a cloud service providing a centralized blockchain ledger for each student to detect cheating

Implemented observability as code and monitored the health of cloud resources including Lambda Invocations , DynamoDB Throttles , and API Gateway Errors

Maintained three massive NoSQL databases of millions of student exam responses, each containing billions of records

Budgeted and administered Stress Tests on cloud infrastructure and resolved performance bottlenecks

Removed 31 critical vulnerabilities in client dependencies such as Prototype Pollution and Template Injection

Refactored the React PWA core lifecycle to optimize CPU usage on millions of devices

Benchmarked compression libraries like pako , uzip , and fflate to choose and implement compression for our API POST payloads

Rebuilt the client build pipeline from Webpack to Vite , reducing build time by over 80%

Implemented dozens of UI updates to the Bluebook client to deliver new features and improve UX

Implemented hundreds of Unit and Integration tests using Jest and Playwright to reach 100% test coverage on multiple subsystems

Implemented JScrambler to obfuscate the client Javascript bundle while also minimizing the cost of obfuscation and bundle size

Upgraded the client build pipeline to upload sourcemaps to JScrambler and Sentry in production, preserving obfuscation while allowing developers to debug production

Oversaw the migration of AWS serverless cloud infrastructure from one region to use cross-region redundancy to improve availability and reduce latency

Analyzed and optimized the client Javascript build process to remove duplicates and unecessary libraries to reduce client bundle size by over 40%

Implemented chunking and exponential backoff to client API calls to manage server load and avoid rate limiting

Contributed to the architectural patterns integrating the cross-platform PWA client with the native OS wrappers

Contributed in the architecture and development of productizing the source code by extracting content into a CMS

Senior Full-Stack Engineer

100k Mentor Challenge Logo

100k Mentor Challenge by ProMazo, Inc.

(1 yr 4 mos) May 2020Sept. 2021

Contributed over 220k additions and 140k deletions (lines of code) on a React Native codebase

Trained more than 15 developers on how to contribute to the codebase efficiently and problem-solve within the technology stack

Implemented more than 20 pages of a cross-platform app using React Native and Expo

Implemented an app-wide navigation system on the frontend using React Navigation & Redux

Managed the CI/CD Pipeline of the React Native app to the iOS / Android app stores

Managed the CI/CD Pipeline of all deployed environments of an AWS Cloud Infrastructure using AWS Amplify

Implemented quality-assurance and living-documentation tools including Jest, Storybook, Prettier, and Docsify

Solutions Architect & Senior Full-Stack Engineer

Mimino Logo

Mimino by ProMazo, Inc.

(2 yrs 2 mos) July 2019Sept. 2021

Contributed over 270k additions and 243k deletions (lines of code) on a React PWA codebase

Modeled a GraphQL schema that has grown to 60+ models and 150+ connections and is still scaling

Implemented the mentioned GraphQL schema as an API in AWS using AppSync, CloudFormation, Amplify, and DynamoDB

Built an internal CLI tool to automate boilerplate code generation and improve developer efficiency by ~30%

Designed and implemented a scalable Aspect-Oriented frontend architecture to support complex data manipulations with React, Redux, Redux-Thunk, and the Amplify SDK

Software Architect Intern

Developer Tools Logo

Developer Tools by Looker Data Sciences, Inc.

(2 mos) June 2019Aug. 2019

Used Node.js with TypeScript to build a developer CLI tool that shows the differences in Webpack bundles to track frontend payload size changes due to the code changes in a given PR

Integrated developer CLI tool into the existing CI/CD stack by working with GitHub, Jenkins, and AWS S3

Developed dozens of integration tests using Puppeteer and an in-house tool built on top of Cucumber

Cloud Backend Engineer

Viking Logo

Viking by The Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

(1 yr 3 mos) Sept. 2018Dec. 2019

Designed a SQL database with 8 tables and implemented via AWS RDS with encryption and disaster-recovery backups

Created a REST API using API Gateway and connected to the RDS databases via AWS Lambda serverless functions

Used AWS Cognito to implement a federated authentication system that conforms to the bank's strict security standards

Built a big-data processing system using AWS Lambda, Kinesis, CloudWatch, S3, and Step Functions to ingest financial data

Software Engineer Intern

Admin Tools Logo

Admin Tools by Looker Data Sciences, Inc.

(2 mos) June 2018Aug. 2018

Used Javascript and Node.js to build a Chrome Extension for internal developers

Configured and deployed Node.js REST API to handle requests on Heroku

Integrated a developer CLI tool into the existing CI/CD stack by working with GitHub, Jenkins, and AWS S3

Developed dozens of integration tests using Puppeteer and an in-house tool built on top of Cucumber

Full Stack Engineer

LASSO Logo

LASSO by University of Rochester IT Department

(2 yrs 3 mos) Feb. 2017May 2019

Maintained and extended the legacy Django server-side-rendered MVC codebase in Python , resolving bugs and shipping new features on LASSO , the in-house employment and inventory management system

Joined a team of 5 engineers to rewrite LASSO from scratch in a separate repository , replacing a codebase tangled with cross-cutting concerns

Delivered a full platform rewrite in 4 months

Built a REST API on the backend with Express.js and Node.js

Implemented frontend logic with Vue.js for the new LASSO platform

Digital Media Specialist

Rettner Hall Digital Media Lab at University of Rochester Logo

Rettner Hall Digital Media Lab at University of Rochester

(2 yrs 7 mos) Oct. 2016May 2019

Served as the primary customer-facing representative of the lab, greeting and assisting a high volume of students daily with a focus on hospitality and satisfaction

Provided technical support to college students using digital media software including Photoshop , Illustrator , Blender , Unreal Engine , Unity , and more

Resolved student concerns and equipment issues on the spot, maintaining a calm, professional demeanor under a busy, fast-paced environment

Managed and maintained the lab's virtual reality equipment, 3D printers , and A/V equipment

Bank Teller

First National Bank of Louisburg

(1 yr 1 mo) June 2015July 2016

Followed legal procedures for the proper processing of checks , cash , and loans , and assisted in the management of customer accounts

Helped customers troubleshoot and resolve financial discrepancies such as searching for missing funds and settling balances

Accurately handled over $50,000 in cash each day