Gameplay engineer and technical designer. Award-winning educator and entrepreneur who spent 10 years building Latin America’s game dev community. Now building games with a focus on storytelling and curiosity

José Rafael Striedinger

Gameplay engineer and technical designer. Award-winning educator and entrepreneur who spent 10 years building Latin America’s game dev community. Now building games with a focus on storytelling and curiosity

Available to hire

Gameplay engineer and technical designer. Award-winning educator and entrepreneur who spent 10 years building Latin America’s game dev community. Now building games with a focus on storytelling and curiosity

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Experience Level

Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Intermediate
Intermediate

Work Experience

Gameplay Engineer at Fermata Inc
August 1, 2025 - May 1, 2026
Built the core gameplay systems for an AI-powered game show (UE5, major streaming client): real-time interpretation of player voice and text input driving the full round-by-round game loop.
Gameplay Engineer & main designer at The Guardian (UE5 3D)
August 1, 2024 - July 1, 2026
Developed a companion AI using behavior trees with custom tasks, services and decorators; built a modular C++/Blueprint interaction system where two detection ranges drive contextual UI feedback, and each object type handles its own interaction behavior through Blueprint overrides.
Gameplay engineer at A Deep World
January 1, 2023 - Present
Built enemy AI with sight and sound detection, multiple chase states, patrol routes, lure mechanics and a frustration state; engineered a flocking system for 700+ fish agents at 60fps using Unity job system and Burst; implemented dynamic culling system to keep flocks performant.
Gameplay engineer at Sorelle
June 1, 2023 - June 1, 2024
Released on Steam (30+ student team at USC Games); built a modular C++ dialogue system as an Unreal Subsystem with Actor Components; designed Ground Pound ability, iterated from player feedback into a split double jump + ground pound.
Founder, Designer, Engineer at ARKDE.COM
January 1, 2020 - December 1, 2022
Built and launched an eLearning platform from scratch, backed by an Epic Games MegaGrant (2022), producing 7 courses on game development (C++, multiplayer, game AI) that reached 1,800+ Hispanic students worldwide; grew a team of 5+ instructors and established a self-sustaining content pipeline.
Game programming professor at Universidad de La Sabana (Colombia)
July 1, 2021 - July 1, 2022
Designed and launched the university's first CS game development course, introducing dozens of CS students to Unity, C# and professional game production pipelines.
Founder and CEO at GET (Colombia)
January 1, 2018 - January 1, 2020
Built and led a government-backed game dev education company from scratch, delivering courses, workshops and events that reached hundreds of students across Bogotá; secured a Colombian government grant to fund operations and expand educational content.
Founder and Producer at GameUP (Colombia)
January 1, 2015 - January 1, 2017
Created the first game development bootcamp in Colombia’s history, running a 4-month intensive program for 3 consecutive years with guest speakers from That Game Company, Electronic Arts, JAM City and more.

Education

MS in Game Design and Development at University of Southern California
January 11, 2030 - January 1, 2025
BS Software Engineering at Universidad de Los Andes
January 11, 2030 - January 1, 2014

Qualifications

George Lucas Foundation scholarship
January 1, 2022 - January 1, 2025
Annenberg Fellowship Recipient
January 1, 2023 - January 1, 2023
Epic Games MegaGrant
January 1, 2022 - January 1, 2022
Colombia SENA startup fund
January 1, 2018 - January 1, 2018

Industry Experience

Gaming, Software & Internet, Education, Media & Entertainment
    paper The Guardian (UE5)

    A journey between a small kid and their watchful protector, inspired by works of Famito Ueda (ICO and others). Showcased at USC Games Expo 2026. I was the main engineer and designer, worked on game AI, interaction systems, and more.
    Find more at jstriedinger.com