When I joined the project as Lead Gameplay Systems Programmer, I was asked to lead both the Gameplay Systems and AI teams, while using my experience with multiplayer, data-driven, and modular systems to provide technical direction as our gameplay technology ramped up towards production. At the same time, development needed to continue moving forward while we worked in parallel to bring the project's core systems and pipelines to a production-ready state.

One of the first challenges I identified was the lack of established collaboration between the project and Engine teams. With the project increasingly needing automation, tooling, and engine-level support, I focused on building that relationship and establishing initiatives that could benefit both the current project and future projects. This resulted in improvements including a SOLID initialization framework, a pipeline for updating navigation mesh plugins, tooling to auto-generate nav-links based on gameplay rules, automatic data exports from the editor to our data centres, and automation testing initiatives.

In parallel, I guided the Gameplay Systems team towards a more data-driven and modular approach while working with directors and designers to get our systems ready for production. Although many of these systems cannot be discussed due to NDA, the changes to our technical foundations were highly praised by our Systems Designers. I also worked to break down the siloed way the team had been operating, improving communication within Gameplay Systems and strengthening collaboration with other teams.

As my role expanded, I became a point of reference for both my team and the wider project. After receiving highly positive feedback from my team, production, direction, and other leads during my first yearly review, I was asked to help new leads joining the project ramp up. Members of my own project who were considering leadership roles also began coming to me for advice, something I value deeply.

This wider responsibility also led me to support the project in addressing a growing bottleneck within the UI team. Working with the Technical Director, I helped develop a solution that included supporting our most senior UI Programmer in transitioning into the Lead UI Programmer role while opening additional UI programming positions to grow the team.

Throughout the role, my focus has been on improving both the technology and the environment around it: establishing stronger technical foundations, enabling teams to collaborate more effectively, and helping the people around me grow while keeping the project moving towards release.