Summary

  • Over fifteen years as a technology lead in building AAA and free-to-play games, simulation engines and tools.
  • My teams value my ability to provide a better, faster development environment, a vision that unifies the creative, technical and business requirements, and a tangible, adaptive path to get there.

Resume: Larry Mellon (MS Word format)

Contact: larry.f.mellon@gmail.com


Leadership background:

  • Cross-team communication skills from years of working in engineering, quality assurance and business development allow seamless translation between customer requirements, technology options, and business implications.
  • Ran small engineering teams in research labs, game production and quality assurance groups, using SCRUM, Lean, XP, test-driven development, embedded metrics and other agile techniques.
  • System architect in the DARPA Synthetic Theater Of War and Advanced Distributed Simulation projects that integrated multiple training simulations into shared virtual worlds for large-scale exercises.
  • A quick learner, with broad interests and leadership roles outside of software.

Career Overview:

  • I worked my way through school as a programmer for the distributed systems research group and by tutoring other students. We spun off the most promising technology into Jade Simulations. Jade was acquired by SAIC to spearhead their growth into large-scale, distributed, simulation-based training.
  • My SAIC/DARPA research into scaling and integrating simulations provided a path into online games. I led simulation, metrics and automated testing teams for EA's biggest franchise, The Sims.
  • After The Sims, I made it my mission to help improve how our industry builds software. I co-founded EGT, successfully funding and growing a platform for online games. I joined KIXEYE to introduce load testing and metrics into all projects, and I am repeating that process as part of building F2P games for Good Games Studios.

My Objectives:

  • A leadership role, fielding games and/or platforms, where I have strong influence over how the product is built and tested and some influence over product requirements. I especially seek mentoring and force multiplier roles that can affect the entire team.
  • My passion is building amazing products, with other passion-driven people, using top-notch production techniques. I joined the game industry to have fun with my job again; to solve new problems, on the fly, with rapid, iterative development. Rapid iteration, backed by constant testing, not only help teams build a better game, but also accelerates development and aids the innovation process.