Michael Szal http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~mszal/ [email protected] 562-972-5067

OBJECTIVE Earn a living at a company of cool people by solving interesting problems or writing useful applications of which I can be proud.

PROGRAMMING Software Engineer 2008 – present EXPERIENCE Savage Entertainment, LLC Los Angeles, CA (5 YEARS, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Platform: PSP) 7 TITLES SHIPPED) • Made the game run at a shippable frame rate by profiling, fixing, and optimizing the collision system (with help from Ruby). • Helped the artists get the most out of the system by adding new material types to the engine. Star Trek: DAC (Platform: PS3) • Met the client's goal for the game to do multi-sample anti-aliasing and bloom despite the PS3's inability to do MSAA on a floating-point render target. • Helped implement the multi-player lobby. Rock Revolution (Platform: PS3) • Increased the frame rate by profiling and optimizing the rendering. Then, when it still did not run at a consistent minimum frame rate, I helped implement frame skipping for the background (3D) so the foreground (UI) would run smoothly. • Improved the look of the game by adding or fixing the following techniques: bloom, depth of field, exposure, fog, projected textures, render to texture, saturation, and shadows.

Programmer 2004 – 2008 Quicksilver Software, Inc. Irvine, CA ID Maker 2.0 (Platform: PC) • Learned ODBC and SQL from scratch, then added the entire ODBC back-end that allows the product to connect to a live database or import from any ODBC-compatible data source. • Learned WPF, then used it to prototype UI layouts for the client. (WPF was a cool new technology at the time.) • Made the new product backwards compatible with the old version to avoid abandoning the users. Star Trek: Tactical Assault (Platforms: DS, PSP) • On both systems: I improved load times by designing and implementing a cross-platform file system and archive system. Also wrote a memory manager and did UI, graphics, and game-logic programming. • On the PSP: I automated the entire asset pipeline and build process with the power of Ruby. Also improved the frame rate with deferred rendering. Hoyle Casino 2006 (Platform: PC) • Helped our artists change existing assets and add new artwork by reverse engineering the custom asset format (with no support from the original developer) and then writing a Photoshop plug-in. • Added two table games. Hoyle Casino 3D (Platform: PC) • Helped rescue this project from another developer by fixing tons of bugs hidden deep in horribly written code. • Added value to the game by hacking in new functionality and features.

VAGUELY Expatriate English teacher 2003 – 2004 RELATED Nova Corp. Saitama, Japan EXPERIENCE Taught English for a year, improved my Japanese, and developed a better understanding of the culture that owns the console market. EDUCATION Harvey Mudd College Class of 2002 Claremont, CA BS in Computer Science and Mathematics (joint major); GPA 3.66; graduated with distinction, dean's list, &c. Received Outstanding Contribution to the Computer Science Clinic award for my work on a microchip- testing GUI.

LANGUAGES/ Best language: I have used these before: APIS • C++ • Cg • CSS Currently learning: • D F# • • DirectX I used to know these well: • GW-BASIC • ARM7TDMI assembly • HLSL • C • JavaScript • C# • lambda calculus • Intel 80x86 assembly • LaTeX • Japanese (JLPT 3) • Lisp • Java • LPC • Lotus 1-2-3 macro • Maple • Ruby • Mathematica • ZZT-oop • MATLAB • MIPS R4000 assembly • Motorola 68000 assembly • ODBC • OpenGL • OpenOffice Basic • Perl • PHP • Prolog • PSGL • Redcode • rex • Smalltalk • SML • SQL • Sun SPARC assembly • TI BASIC • TI-BASIC • WPF • XHTML • XML • XNA • ZiLOG Z80 assembly