Bill Watters

Experience

1. 

   Meta · Full-time

   • Software Engineering Manager

     May 2025 - Present · 3 mos·San Francisco Bay Area · Hybrid·Current

     Working as part of the Generative AI Production Engineering group leading highly impactful engineers through the evolution of the organization. Skills: Engineering Management · Systems Development Management · Multiple Project Coordination · Mentoring

2. 

   Creation Entertainment · Contract

   • Chief Technology Officer

     Mar 2024 - Present · 1 yr 5 mos·San Francisco Bay Area · Remote·Current

     Skills: Technology Leadership · Live Event Production · Business Process Improvement · Cross-functional Team Leadership · Distributed Team Management

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   The Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films · Seasonal

   • Producer

     2014 - Present · 11 yrs 7 mos·Los Angeles Metropolitan Area·Current

     The SATURN AWARDS is produced by The Academy of Science Fiction Fantasy and Horror Films celebrates and honors professionals and their work in genre TV and Film. Since the 40th anniversary, I've been editing and producing the various videos used by the Academy and the Awards Ceremony, including acceptance speeches, memorial collections, special award montages, interview pieces, and more). Skills: JavaScript · Leadership · Engineering Leadership · Team Management The Saturn Awards

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   Watters Mark Phototography · Self-employed

   • Freelance Photographer, Writer, Editor, and Content Creator

     May 2009 - Present · 16 yrs 3 mos·San Francisco Bay Area · Remote·Current

     Performed variously as a writer, editor, photographer, and videographer as well as technical consultant for a range of New Media Geek and Pop-Culture outlets, including: Nerdbot.com, IGN.com, UGO.com, TrekMovie.com, BleedingCool.com, AggressiveComix.com, ComicsOnline.com, GeeksAreSexy.net, and Examiner.com Skills: Editorial Photography · Videography · Online Journalism

5. 

   Renaissance Productions · Seasonal

   • Co-owner / Senior Event Operations Manager

     Jan 2000 - Present · 25 yrs 7 mos·San Francisco Bay Area · Remote·Current

     Over the past two and a half decades, we have produced more than 30 major themed events, provided senior staff event production experience to another 20, and general staff for countless others. Events include Renaissance Faires, Pirate Festivals, Fantasy Faires, Literary Balls, Symposiums, and more. Ranging from small single day school benefit events to major multi-weekend regional festivals, we have hosted, thrilled, and delighted audiences of all ages Skills: Live Event Production · Event Production · Contract Negotiation

6. 

   Volley · Part-time

   • Staff Engineer

     Jun 2024 - May 2025 · 1 yr·San Francisco, California, United States · Hybrid

     Skills: JavaScript · TypeScript · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Software Engineering · Full-Stack Development · Node.js

7. 

   Nextdoor · Full-time

   • Senior Engineering Manager

     Mar 2023 - Nov 2023 · 9 mos·San Francisco Bay Area · Hybrid

     *Impacted by Companywide 25% reduction I led the Cloud Engineering team, bringing together a siloed set of individuals to a cohesive and collaborative organization. Oversaw ongoing cost tuning, as well as the migration from dedicated instances to a fully containerized system in Kubernetes. Skills: JavaScript · Social Influence · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Leadership · TypeScript · Engineering Management · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · DevOps · Kubernetes · Node.js · Team Management

8. 

   10 yrs 2 mos

   • Senior Engineering Manager

     Mar 2019 - Mar 2023 · 4 yrs 1 mo·San Francisco Bay Area

     Within Zynga's Poker group, I was initially the manager of a Features team, working on new product aspects and systems. After a year, I was tasked with taking on the Live Ops and Dev Ops teams to bring them together and improve process and stability in deployments and during spikes, along with developing a range of cost savings that brought the monthly AWS expenses down by nearly 50%. Skills: JavaScript · Social Influence · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Leadership · TypeScript · Engineering Management · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Kubernetes · Node.js · Team Management

   • Principal Software Engineer

     Jul 2016 - Mar 2019 · 2 yrs 9 mos·San Francisco Bay Area

     Skills: Social Influence · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Full-Stack Development · Kubernetes · Team Management

9. 

   4 yrs 1 mo

   • Special Features Editor

     Mar 2016 - Mar 2020 · 4 yrs 1 mo·San Francisco Bay Area

     Writing on a range of geek culture topics with a focus on film and television news, reviews, and interviews. Beginning with Television and Film writing; I have moved into developing new features across the site sections, contests, video content production, and other audience-expanding content. Skills: JavaScript · Social Influence

   • Special Features Editor

     Mar 2016 - Jun 2019 · 3 yrs 4 mos·San Francisco Bay Area

     Writing on a range of geek culture topics with a focus on film and television news, reviews, and interviews. Beginning with Television and Film writing; I have moved into developing new features across the site sections, contests, video content production, and other audience-expanding content. Skills: Writing · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Wordpress Development · Editorial Photography · Reviews

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    Silicon Valley Comic Con · Seasonal

    • Director of Programming & Event Consultant/Fixer

      Nov 2015 - Feb 2022 · 6 yrs 4 mos·San Francisco Bay Area · Remote

      Developed and coordinated the programming and scheduling for the largest Comic-Con to have been held in Northern California. Worked in conjunction with the PR/Media/Volunteer teams to manage attendee experience and press content. Skills: Live Event Production · Event Planning · Press Relations · Software Engineering

11. 

    10 yrs 2 mos

    • Division CTO 2P Games

      Jun 2015 - Sep 2017 · 2 yrs 4 mos·San Francisco Bay Area

      Led the live operations of existing titles (Stampede Run & Looney Tunes Dash!), as well as the development, launch, and release of Ice Age: Arctic Blast. Directed, mentored, and worked with internal and external development & QA teams to deliver games on time & on budget. Skills: Social Influence · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Leadership · Engineering Management · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Full-Stack Development · Team Management

    • Senior Server/Full Stack Engineer

      Feb 2013 - Jul 2016 · 3 yrs 6 mos·San Francisco Bay Area

      Acted as a lead engineer on two successive #1 titles in both the iOS as well as Android stores (Running with Friends and Looney Tunes Dash). Worked full stack from server (Rails/PHP/Memcache), to web integration (PHP/HTML/jQuery/AJAX), to the mobile clients (C++/Java/Objective-C). Supported and scaled a multi-million player a day environment. Skills: Social Influence · Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Full-Stack Development Ice Age: Arctic Blast Looney Tunes Dash! Running With Friends / Stampede Run

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    ngmoco

    • Senior Server Engineer

      Jan 2012 - 2013 · 1 yr 1 mo·San Francisco Bay Area

      Lead server engineer on Transformers: Legends for iOS and Android platforms. Skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Full-Stack Development We Rule Transformers Legends

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    PR Sirens

    • Account Manager

      Mar 2007 - Dec 2011 · 4 yrs 10 mos·San Francisco Bay Area
14. 

    IGN Entertainment (aka GameSpy)

    • Lead Engineer

      2005 - Nov 2011 · 6 yrs 11 mos·San Francisco Bay Area

      Skills: Social Influence · Leadership · Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Full-Stack Development · Team Management Battlefield 2: Modern Combat THQ's UFC 2010 Red Alert 3

15. 

    GameSpy Industries

    • Lead Engineer

      Jan 2005 - Oct 2011 · 6 yrs 10 mos

      Working in the professional services division of GameSpy. Enabling game publishers and developers to design their titles for the next generation of multiplayer experience both in and out of game. Worked extensively with Rockstar, THQ, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Dice, LucasArts, and others to develop custom implementations of the online experience for their titles. Architecting back end solutions and processes to support some of the largest game titles published. Just a few titles of note: GTAIV, Petz, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Command & Conquer 3, Empire at War, Warhammer: Mark of Chaos, Battle for Middle Earth 2, and many others.

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    eNature.com

    • Lead Web Engineer/Software Architect

      Sep 2002 - Mar 2005 · 2 yrs 7 mos

      • Designed a new database engine model to allow for greater scalability with the existing infrastructure. Allowing servers to now handle thousands of concurrent users each. • Designed and wrote the infrastructure, databases, and content management engines for http://www.sibleyguidetobirds.com • Continuing to develop new application components to allow for more modular extensions to the system as the demand for new areas and content grows. • Developed a number of PalmOS applications for both stand-alone as well as offline synchronization of user data to the corporate website. • Created a library of stand alone applications to enable image and file processing as well as large scale data manipulation Skills: Engineering Leadership · Cloud Eng · Full-Stack Development

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    Montclare Technologies

    • Web Systems Architect/Director of Development

      Jun 1998 - Mar 2004 · 5 yrs 10 mos

      • As the founding engineer of the company, I designed and developed the strategies and implementation models for the web services division. • Implemented and customized a number of web portals, including custom tile and application integration into the portal framework. • Created intranets and extranets utilizing a range of technologies. Also designed migration paths from legacy applications to more modern solutions. • Conceived and created, iUpdate, the company’s first software suite designed to facilitate website content management by individual clients, freeing the company to focus on site technologies rather than content management. • Directed the development group during it’s first year as the engineering team grew to over 16 programmers. • Conceived and created the first of the Montclare Tools division’s suite of applications, the Blender for Website conversion as well as conceived the second application, the Spinner for rapid prototyping of websites. Skills: Engineering Leadership

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    Mpath Interactive

    • Director of Support Services

      Sep 1996 - Apr 1998 · 1 yr 8 mos

      • Created and administered both a call tracking database solution for the customer service department, as well as a bug tracking solution for engineering and quality assurance. The former currently handling over 3,000 incidents per week. • Managed an 18 person call center in a high volume online environment • Developed training manuals and implemented training courses for both level I and level II customer service representatives and technical support engineers. • Generated reports on the status of user problem incidents and gave feedback to product development and engineering on the state of the current user base. • Actively participated in engineering team meetings and assisted in project planning and design phases. • Worked with Marketing to develop a range of ongoing programs to encourage development of online communities. • Acted as third tier technical support as well as the company's point of contact for press and developers with technical problems and questions.

19. 

    General Magic, Inc.

    • Manager, PC Technologies

      Mar 1995 - Sep 1996 · 1 yr 7 mos

      • Planned, administered, and reported on both internal and external Beta tests of Windows software products, involving over 500 testers. • Managed numerous external Magic Cap for Windows 3rd party product developer relationships. • Assisted in the implementation of beta test programs for their software. • Developed and administered Windows, PC hardware, configuration, and Product training courses for both the AT &T Customer Care Center as well as a technical support outsourcing agency in preparation for their becoming a 1st tier technical support organization on the Windows platform. • Wrote QA test plans for PC compatibility and hardware testing (including modems, networks, and printers). • Acted as the primary PC support engineer for General Magic's PC inventory. • Researched and examined new and emerging technologies for the PC platform and made recommendations to the business development teams for their ongoing project plans.

20. 

    3DO

    • Technical Support Manager

      Jan 1994 - Mar 1995 · 1 yr 3 mos
21. 

    Spectrum Holobyte

    • Technical Support Supervisor

      Jan 1992 - Jan 1994 · 2 yrs 1 mo

      Tetris Falcon 3.0 X-Com

Education

1. 
   San Francisco State UniversityFilm Production/Marketing (PR Emphasis)1990 - 1993
2. E
   Emporia State UniversityTheater1987 - 1990

Skills