Sacramento, California, United States
Hey, I'm John! I'm a VP of Technology and during my career I've had the privilege of working on groundbreaking projects and collaborating with industry giants like Disney, LEGO, Honda, Meta, Google, and Verizon. Some Key Achievements I was the Lead Developer behind the world's first commercial WebAR experience and I've also lead on some of the first commercial projects to take advantage of character AI. But more than that, I've been part of many early testing and technology launches including companies like Snap, Meta and Unity. Including being in the first group of external developers to use and provide feedback on Lens Studio. The projects I've been a part of have received numerous accolades, including Webbys and Clio awards among others. I am currently at the helm of the development team at the most experienced XR developer in the world and have managed teams from 3-15 people in size. I've hired and mentored many engineers, guiding some into management and others into senior IC roles. I've lead projects for events as prestigious as the Super Bowl and worked on IP as precious Mickey and Minnie. I have lead teams that consistently hit a high level of quality while ensuring those projects are on time and budget.
*Restructured the Engineering, 3D, and Production departments, bringing them under my unified leadership. *Led cross-functional teams (Director of Tech, PMs, Engineers, 3D Artists) to deliver millions of dollars in projects. *Oversaw technical scoping and pricing for tens of millions of dollars in annual new possible business. *Managed a team that includes a Director of Technology, Program Managers, Engineers, and 3D Artists. *Built and maintained senior client relationships with Universal, Meta, and NASCAR; among others.
*Reworked our R&D process by partnering with VPs of Innovation and Sales. We were able to reduce the time to create prototypes and create work that was better aligned with business goals *Owned the relationship with key technical partners such as NVIDIA, Meta, 8th Wall. Lead to numerous chances to to work with unreleased tech that we were then able to pull into future projects *Partnered with other Directors and VPs to identify areas of improvement and put together plans for improvement. Oversaw some of the largest structural changes to the company
*Lead a team of up to 15 engineers. Mentored a number of engineers from mid to senior level. Mentored senior engineer to management *Created our department's reporting structure. Oversaw the creation of 2 new roles in the department. Defined the responsibilities of all roles in the department and created a formal guide for promotion and advancement *Revamped our department meetings to foster a strong community within the department, leading to the lowest turnover rate in the company *Partnered with HR on a DEI initiative focusing on getting women in tech. Created an internship program that resulted in over 90% women
*Served as the primary point of contact for Toyota Financial Services’ Salesforce SRM application, supporting hundreds of internal users across the U.S. *Owned production support and feature development, resolving critical issues and implementing enhancements to improve system reliability and user experience.
I work with a small team to set up and take down events at Stevenson College, this includes gaining a strong knowledge of how to prepare and strike video and audio equipment. I also work with the organization, or event planer, putting on the event to ensure the event is successful.
At VSP I worked with the Database Administrators to update and improve current databases. I was also able to help them document some of their older databases that needed to be updated. Lastly I worked with management to improve company policy on the creation, documentation, update of databases.