J. "fluffy" Shagam

Summary

I am a broad-spectrum creative professional specializing in interactive spaces, particularly in the area of games, media, and online communities. In my career I have been responsible for numerous innovations, from helping to reinvent the publishing industry to working on an Emmy-winning virtual reality experience. Some of my shipped software has constant usage with millions of active daily users. My specialty is to bring disparate fields together in order to build something greater than the sum of its parts.

Skills

Programming: C++, Python, Qt, Lua, JavaScript, Unity (C#), Java, OpenGL/GLSL, HLSL
Technical and project management: Agile, kanban, test/documentation coverage standards, team organization, continuous process improvement
Accessibility: Disability advocate for physical, neurological, and emotional needs, especially in the areas of chronic pain and neurodiversity
Music, video, and content production: Sound design and music composition (Logic, Cubase, REAPER); video editing (Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve); 3D modeling (Blender); visual design (Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Suite)
Community management: Active moderation including Discord, forums, VRChat, and in-person; code of conduct development and enforcement; YouTube channel management

Open-Source Projects

Bandcrash: Standalone application Python, Qt application that makes it easy for independent musicians to prepare their music for online distribution without being tied to a specific platform.
Publ: Python/Flask-based web publishing framework for flexible site management with heterogeneous content (blogs, articles, photos, music, comics, et al), with an emphasis towards privacy controls, IndieWeb integration, and support for various modes of self-hosted and cloud-based deployment. Lead developer and community support.
Pushl: Python-based push notification helper for automatically sending out WebSub, webmention, and pingback notifications. Lead developer.
webmention.js: Client-side JavaScript library for displaying incoming notifications on webmention-enabled pages. Lead developer and community support.
Authl: Python library for adding simplified federated/third-party login using various identity providers (including Email, Twitter, Mastodon, and IndieAuth) to web-based applications, with drop-in integration with Flask. Lead developer and community support.
Feed on Feeds: Modernized fork of a lightweight PHP-based RSS/Atom reader. Major contributions include improved standards compliance, bandwidth reduction, WebSub/PubSubHubBub support, and improvements to the deployment process and documentation thereof.

Work Experience

Freelance January 2017 — PresentSeattle, WA

Independent content creator

Skills used: Python, C++, Lua, JavaScript, Unity, AR/VR, Logic Pro, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Blender, Qt
Designed and built numerous games and interaction prototypes, exploring the interplay between music and gameplay; composed the music and produced the sound designs for several small games, making them much more enjoyable to play; many of these games won "best audio" awards within their respective game jams.
Built content for VRChat, including custom avatars and assets, environments, and sound design; wrote tutorials to help other content creators do the same more effectively.
Managed multiple online communities, including forums, Discord channels, and VRChat groups.

Hover January 2022 — June 2022San Francisco, CA (remote)

Senior software engineer, UX Research.

Skills used: C++, OpenGL, Kotlin
Developed prototype user experiences for improving an image capture workflow for residential exteriors and interiors, improving the customer experience with the use of our products.
Evaluated multiple technologies and techniques for coverage estimation and geometry reconstruction.

Moz/Ziff Media Group September 2020 — December 2021Seattle, WA

Senior software engineer (SDE4), link index team

Skills used: C++, Python, AWS
Designed and rewrote major parts of Moz's reverse link index and crawler, improving performance and reliability for the company's core product.
Migrated legacy services to AWS (EC2, S3, ElastiCache, RDS), saving substantial operating costs and related overhead for these services.
Improved the relationship between Moz and external website operators, reducing server load and perceived security incidents, improving Moz's reputation in the greater Internet community.

Maven Coalition/The Arena Group February 2020 — September 2020Seattle, WA

Staff software Engineer, full-stack

Skills used: Python, C#, Kubernetes, AWS
Implemented new render features for publishers to convey a wider variety of content types within their articles.
Improved the security of the publishing stack, particularly in areas of spam, abuse, and clickjack/XSS mitigation.
Diagnosed and directed fixes for performance and bandwidth issues, improving content availability and discoverability on social platforms and for users in bandwidth-constrained areas such as developing nations.
Internal development practice evangelism, especially regarding testing and internal documentation, improving the effectiveness of the development team as a whole.

Workshop 3D, LLC January 2017 — February 2020Seattle, WA

CTO and co-founder

Skills used: Python, C++, Java, AR/VR, Android
Built transmedia experiences, including augmented reality applications, and kinetic scupture installations.
Designed and implemented key portions of applications for clients such as the Quincy Valley Historical Society Museum, the city of Shoreline, WA, the Kinects apartment building, and the BOREALIS Festival of Light, as well as self-released applications including PropellAR (simulated drone/quadcopter) and ARt Portal (an interactive gallery experience application).
Established internal development processes and set the technical direction of the company.

University of Washington, Mullins Molecular Retroviral Laboratory December 2018 — September 2019Seattle, WA

Senior computer specialist

Skills used: Python, HTML, JavaScript, Perl
Maintained Viroverse, a system for the management of virology research data, used primarily in HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 research.
Core infrastructure and technology support for lab technicians.
Redesigned and built the lab's website and automated the publication of ongoing research information, improving the sharing of virology information within the greater research community.

HBO September 2014 — January 2017Seattle, WA

Staff software engineer, digital products and interactive applications

Skills used: C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, Unreal Engine, AR/VR, Logic Pro
Westworld VR: graphics programming, sound design, user experience, video processing and playback, visual effect production, and performance optimization (Unreal Engine 4, HLSL, FB Spatial Workstation), improving the immersion and comfort of those who engaged with this interactive experience; Emmy award winner.
HBO Virtual Cinema: Designed and built the interactive lighting system for the HBO VR Cinema application for Google Daydream (Java/Android, OpenGL ES, GLSL).
HBO GO/Max: Designed and built the native layer (Java/C++) and JavaScript bindings for the Android runtime; increased performance on low-power devices; enabled the HBO Go application to run on a wider variety of hardware with an excellent customer experience; crafted the unified sound design for HBO GO/Max, improving HBO's brand recognition across platforms.

Amazon.com August 2012 — June 2014Seattle, WA

Senior software engineer (SDE3), consumer website

Skills used: C++, AWS
Tech leadership on the Media Services and Applications team; improved internal documentation, developer processes, and team efficiency, and worked with developers on other teams to improve site features and reduce operating costs.
Designed and implemented the image scaler that powers the Amazon.com retail website, improving customer satisfaction and decreasing operating costs.
Caching team; developed new features for the retail website caching fleet to improve its scaling and latency characteristics; contributed to a distributed software load-balancing framework to reduce hardware costs and improve resource utilization.
Supported internal customers on a wide variety of products, including distributed storage systems, imaging support for Kindle and set-top devices, and improving legacy systems while managing conflicting compatibility requirements.

Sony Network Entertainment August 2007 — July 2012San Francisco, CA

Senior software engineer

Skills used: C++, Java, JavaScript, HTML, Android
Core developer of the Trilithium application platform for Playstation 3, including JavaScript runtime, render pipeline, shaders, developer API, and performance optimization; lead developer of the Android and Linux versions; consulting engineer for the PlayStation Vita and Bravia porting teams.
Designed and implemented developer APIs for a large-scale media management system; wrote documentation and trained other developers in the use of these APIs.
Wrote graphics rendering and metadata-management middleware for a variety of platforms, including Sony PlayStation 3, Android TV, and Sony Ericsson phones.

Amazon.com May 2005 — July 2007Seattle, WA

Software engineer (SDE2), Kindle

Skills used: C++, Perl
Created file format, rendering library, and client-side integrations for the Kindle Topaz format.
Developed highly-efficient compression and reformatting algorithms for scanned paaper books, reducing data size by 98% and enabling publishers to easily provide electronic versions of their legacy paper books.
Acted as early internal customer of S3 and EC2 to help prove out the services and find areas of improvement.

Longtail Studios/Guillemot Entertainment (Ubisoft subsidiary) July 2004 — April 2005Manhattan, NY

Platform and graphics engineer

Skills used: C++, Java, Logic Pro
Architect and primary implementor of graphics, platform, file-management, sound/music, and user interface modules on multiple embedded platforms (Nintendo DS, ARM- and MIPS-based feature phones).
Designed and implemented a semi-interactive soundtrack system; composed, recorded, and produced music and sound effects for a variety of devices.
Designed and implemented domain-specific facial animation systems for resource-constrained mobile systems.
Shipping games include Sprung: The Dating Game (Nintendo DS launch title, published December 2004) and Love Triangle Dating Challenge (BREW/J2ME, published July 2005).

Education

New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM

Graduate program, Computer Science

Master's degree (3.9 GPA) with partial work towards a Ph.D.
Research in high-performance computer graphics, with secondary areas in image and video processing.
Developed algorithms and data representations for complex computer graphics tasks such as realtime spatial partitioning, visibility determination, shadow volume generation, and arbitrarily resamplable and blendable object representations.
US Department of Education GAANN fellow. Teaching assistant with additional lecture duties. Courses included Machine Programming and Organization (CS273), Systems Architecture (CS473), C++ Programming (CS167), Human-Computer Interaction (CS485), and Computer Graphics (CS450).

New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM

Undergraduate program, Computer Science

Bachelor's degree (3.4 GPA overall, 3.65 in major)
Student proctor of the undergraduate Computer Science lab, helping students with computing resources and homework assignments
Administrator of the Hobbes OS/2 archive; reorganized the archive for clarity and browseability, and rewrote the web interface for performance and usability

Publications and Patents

Amazon: Multiple patents in the fields of document structure analysis, realtime image-based document reflow, compression, and low-latency network messaging.
Sony: Patent for algorithms in the field of dependency-based network resource management.
E. Murray (head writer), G. Guillemot (exec. prod.), et al, Love Triangle Dating Challenge, video game, Gameloft, July 2005.
C. McGuinness (head writer), G. Guillemot (exec. prod.), et al, Sprung, video game, Ubisoft Entertainment, December 2004.
J. Shagam, Dynamic Spatial Partitioning for Real-Time Visibility Determination, master's project, Dept. of Computer Science, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, April 2003
J. Shagam and J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Dynamic Irregular Octrees, tech. report NMSU-CS-2003-004, Dept. of Computer Science, New Mexico State University, April 2003.
J. Shagam, Fast Inversion of Orthogonal Transformation Matrices, tech. report NMSU-CS-2003-003, Dept. of Computer Science, New Mexico State University, April 2003.

Awards and Recognition

Seattle True Independent Film Festival, Best Transmedia Project Award, 2017
Television Academy Emmy™ award for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media Within A Scripted Program (Westworld), September 2017
Competed in the Association for Computing Machinery collegiate programming contest; regional level in 1996 and 1997; world finals in 1998

Affiliations and Volunteering

Staff composer and assistant video editor with Trans Academy, a nonprofit organization that provides education and support to the transgender community, primarily via VRChat. Producing soundtracks for outreach videos, social media posts, and in-game events, and assist with video editing as needed.
Member of ASCAP, 2016 — present.
Active member of IndieWeb (2018 — present). General community evangelist and interoperability proponent. Contributor to the IndieAuth Living Standard.
Volunteer administrator of Song Fight!. Website and forum maintenance, site reliability, and occasional video production and livestream hosting.
Member of Seattle Indies (2014 — present); participant in multiple outreach events including GeekGirlCon (2017), Emerald City Comic Con (2018), Renton City Retro (2018), Kobe-Kon (2018), and Global Game Jam; facilitator/mentor at GGJ Next (2018); exhibitor at Seattle Indies Expo (SIX) 2018 (Refactor, Admiralo Island Witches Club); selection jury member for SIX 2023.
Former member of Association of Computing Machinery and ACM SIGGRAPH.