Miller Tinkerhess

I wrote my first text adventure in QBasic when I was eight. I have 12 years' professional software development experience (14 if you count grad school!).

I've worked on an AR IDE; a synthesizer; an online digital card game; VR tech demos, turorials, and multiplayer prototypes; a solo-dev roguelite; a AAA multiplayer first-person shooter; and real-time strategy prototypes.

I also have a degree in jazz trumpet and like to play guitar and synthesizers! My current side project is Bloopbox.com, a synthesizer written in C++ and JavaScript that runs in the browser using WebAssembly.

Experience:

Snap, Inc. - Santa Monica, CA
Software Engineer, Lens Studio team - June 2021 to present

• Tech lead and manager.
• Leading technical design and development of foundational systems in Lens Studio to support future use cases.
• Introduced agile processes to the team to increase confidence in our planning and execution.
• C++, Qt

Riot Games - Los Angeles, CA
Legends of Runeterra:
Staff Software Engineer, Acquire and Collect team - April 2021 to June 2021
Senior Software Engineer, Acquire and Collect team - January 2020 to April 2021
Software Engineer, Gameplay Features team - June 2018 to January 2020

• Helped ship Legends of Runeterra to millions of players and win Apple's Best of 2020 iPad Game of the Year.
• Tech lead on Aquire and Collect team, with 2-4 full-stack (Unity client, ASP.NET services, C# game server) engineers responsible for features like deckbuilder, store, collection, and card styles.
• On Gameplay Features team, worked on features like layout of elements on cards, input handling, layout of cards in the hand and on the game board, "card fan" that shows details of a card, and action log.
• Unity, C#, Python.

Oculus, Facebook - Seattle, WA
Game Programmer, Oculus REX team - October 2016 to April 2018

• Worked on Boundless virtual pet for Oculus Quest, shown at Oculus Connect 4 in October 2017, and later released as Oculus Bogo in 2019.
• Released Oculus First Contact for Oculus Rift.
• Developed various multiplayer prototypes using Unreal networking, Photon, and Oculus platform low-level peer-to-peer networking.
• Unreal Engine 4, Unity, C++, C#.

Adventure Delivery Service - Seattle, WA
Solo Developer - April 2016 to June 2018

• Made Adventure Delivery Service, a procedurally generated action adventure game built in Unity. Built the whole game myself!
• Custom A* pathfinding and path following implementation.
• 3D modeling, rigging, skinning, and animation.
• Music composition and sound design.
• Unity, C#, Blender, Ableton Live.

343 Industries, Microsoft Studios - Kirkland / Redmond, WA
Software Development Engineer - May 2013 to April 2016

• On the multiplayer team for Halo 5: Guardians.
• Worked on multiplayer game modes including Slayer, Capture the Flag, Strongholds, Breakout, Big Team Battle, Assault, Grifball, Infection, and the 24-player mode Warzone.
• Proprietary engine, C++, C#, Lua.

Age of Empires team, Microsoft Studios - Redmond, WA
Software Development Engineer - August 2012 to May 2013

• Worked on prototypes that would eventually become Age of Empires: Castle Siege.
• Unity, Vision Engine, C#, C++.

University of Michigan Artificial Intelligence Lab - Ann Arbor, MI
Research Programmer - October 2009 to August 2010

• Worked on a simulation environment framework for reinforcement learning agents.

National Association of College Stores - Oberlin, OH
Web Developer - June 2008 to May 2009

• Implemented online credit card processing for donations and membership renewals.
• Found and fixed SQL injection vulnerabilities.

Education:

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI
Master's Degree in Computer Science - May 2012
Graduate Research Assistant with the Soar group under Professor John Laird.

• Co-author, A Case Study in Integrating Probabilistic Decision Making and Learning in a Symbolic Cognitive Architecture: Soar Plays Dice, 2011 AAAI Fall Symposium Series.
• Co-author, Online Determination of Value-Function Structure and Action-Value Estimates for Reinforcement Learning in a Cognitive Architecture, Advances in Cognitive Systems 2.
  • Implemented dice game engine and ran experiments dealing with probabilistic decision making and improving performance through reinforcement learning.
• Developed iOS game Michigan Liar's Dice.
• Developed an algorithm to generate rhyming poetry in iambic pentameter based on an input document.

Oberlin Conservatory of Music - Oberlin, OH
Bachelor of Music in Jazz Trumpet Performance - May 2008

• Toured as a member of the Oberlin Jazz Septet.
• Received the National Merit Award and the Conservatory Dean's Talent Award.