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Hi, I’m Zach Bowman, a Senior Game Developer with a powerful mix of professional and independent experience. My passion is games, learning the skills it takes to turn ideas into reality, and getting projects over the finish line. I’m a well-rounded developer with experience across all aspects of the design and development process, engineering for consoles, PC, and web browsers across a wide variety of engines and languages. My experiences include engine architecture, gameplay, systems design, UI, UX, testing, automation, debugging, art, design, sound, and music. I’m a collaborative creator who loves shipping polished, player-focused experiences.…Hi, I’m Zach Bowman, a Senior Game Developer with a powerful mix of professional and independent experience. My passion is games, learning the skills it takes to turn ideas into reality, and getting projects over the finish line. I’m a well-rounded developer with experience across all aspects of the design and development process, engineering for consoles, PC, and web browsers across a wide variety of engines and languages. My experiences include engine architecture, gameplay, systems design, UI, UX, testing, automation, debugging, art, design, sound, and music. I’m a collaborative creator who loves shipping polished, player-focused experiences.

Zach Bowman

Game Developer, Game Designer, Developer, +7

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Hi, I’m Zach Bowman, a Senior Game Developer with a powerful mix of professional and independent experience. My passion is games, learning the skills it takes to turn ideas into reality, and getting projects over the finish line. I’m a well-rounded developer with experience across all aspects of the design and development process, engineering for consoles, PC, and web browsers across a wide variety of engines and languages. My experiences include engine architecture, gameplay, systems design, UI, UX, testing, automation, debugging, art, design, sound, and music. I’m a collaborative creator who loves shipping polished, player-focused experiences.…Hi, I’m Zach Bowman, a Senior Game Developer with a powerful mix of professional and independent experience. My passion is games, learning the skills it takes to turn ideas into reality, and getting projects over the finish line. I’m a well-rounded developer with experience across all aspects of the design and development process, engineering for consoles, PC, and web browsers across a wide variety of engines and languages. My experiences include engine architecture, gameplay, systems design, UI, UX, testing, automation, debugging, art, design, sound, and music. I’m a collaborative creator who loves shipping polished, player-focused experiences.

Available to hire

Hi, I’m Zach Bowman, a Senior Game Developer with a powerful mix of professional and independent experience. My passion is games, learning the skills it takes to turn ideas into reality, and getting projects over the finish line.

I’m a well-rounded developer with experience across all aspects of the design and development process, engineering for consoles, PC, and web browsers across a wide variety of engines and languages. My experiences include engine architecture, gameplay, systems design, UI, UX, testing, automation, debugging, art, design, sound, and music. I’m a collaborative creator who loves shipping polished, player-focused experiences.

Skills

Experience Level

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Expert

Language

English

Fluent

Work Experience

Computer Science Instructor at Preply

September 1, 2025 - Present

Created detailed lessons teaching game development for beginners using multiple languages and engines. Tutored students in computer science concepts and game dev, providing a solid base of knowledge and skills.

Lead Gameplay Engineer at Nightmare Games

January 1, 2005 - Present

Leading a small team to build a mech fighting FPS in Unreal 5 as engineering lead and project manager. Built Photon, a 2D graphics rendering engine from scratch in Visual C++. Designed and created H0V3R, a prototype 3D hover-car racing game with custom physics using Unity, C#, and Blender. Created Outlaw JS, a 2D JavaScript game engine from the ground up, and shipped multiple games developed using it. Developed and shipped Blockhead, a puzzle game for Windows, Xbox, and mobile.

Unreal Prototype Developer at Meta

June 1, 2024 - November 1, 2024

Streamlined existing tech samples with bug fixes and UI polish, improving presentation. Created a new UE5 tech sample from scratch to showcase emerging VR tech.

Freelance Game Developer (Client-Based) at Freelance

February 1, 2023 - June 1, 2024

Upgraded and polished a client's FPS shooter for Meta Quest VR in Unreal, taking it from early prototype to ship over several weeks. Created an inventory management tool to help designers test and balance item stats, using WPF with C#. Enhanced an existing Unreal FPS project with a grappling hook power-up by using a custom movement component and mode. Boosted the speed of a C# asteroid game with memory optimizations and fixed the AI targeting algorithms.

Gameplay Systems Engineer, Actor Team at Mojang Studios / Red Lens Games

November 1, 2019 - February 1, 2023

Shipped four major updates: The Nether Update, Caves & Cliffs Part 1 and Part 2, and The Wild Update. Managed a team to refactor the biome generation engine, making the Caves & Cliffs update possible. Created a display-only actor and rewrote existing entity code to allow it to only exist client-side, unblocking future work. Led an office game jam that re-engineered Minecraft to allow players to build and drive custom vehicles in-game. Improved stability and user experience by fixing bugs and writing tests for actors, ECS, pathfinding, interactions, and AI.

Automation Developer, Productivity Engineer at 343 Industries

April 1, 2018 - October 1, 2019

Increased the speed and efficiency of our testing on Halo Infinite by automating our most problematic tests. Designed methods for automating user input on the Xbox controller and the game editor UI, allowing for more powerful testing. Increased the speed of our test runs by 10% by targeting slowest areas with optimizations. Improved our in-house tools and pipelines by creating UI, adding features, fixing bugs, and refactoring problem areas.

Software Engineer 2 at Double Down Interactive / IGT

June 1, 2015 - November 1, 2017

Upgraded their technology by building the Extended Desktop Client, an HTML5 game-hosting platform to replace the obsolete flash site. Led engineering on two games, managing the projects and writing the majority of the client-side code. Programmed animations, dialogs, layouts, UI, bug fixes, core architecture, state machines, server response, and sound.

Software Development Engineer at Microsoft Game Studios

August 1, 2014 - March 1, 2015

Project lead on Sundial, an intelligent reporting tool for visualizing Azure DevOps data in a visual, interactive graph. Designed and automated an AI bot to navigate Gears of War levels, gathering performance data. Envisioned and developed UI and core functionality for eight testing applications for Forza and Gears of War using WPF and C#.