# James (Jake) Truckle

Pittsburgh, PA · 301.408.8142 · truckle12@gmail.com · [truckle.me](https://truckle.me) · [itch.io/truckle12](https://truckle12.itch.io/) · [ArtStation](https://truckle12.artstation.com) · [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/jamestruckle)

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## Summary

Game designer and indie studio founder with a decade of professional software experience at Waymo, Uber ATG, and Microsoft. Currently developing **No Way Inn** at Yinzer Games LLC. I bring shipping discipline from autonomous-vehicle and OS-platform programs to indie development: systems design, full pipeline ownership, and a human-centered approach rooted in CS, robotics, and psychology.

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## Game Development

### Yinzer Games LLC — Founder, Game Designer & Developer · 2023 – Present
- Founded an independent game studio building **action rogue-lites with handcrafted boss fights**.
- **No Way Inn** *(in development)* — top-down action rogue-lite, *"Hades meets Death's Door, with a twist that won't let you go."* Solo dev in **Unity 6 (URP)** with **Game Creator 2** and custom C# extensions; authored the full Game Design Document.
- Own the full pipeline end-to-end: design, scripting, level building, art direction, and publishing.

### Side projects & coursework
- **Over the Moon** *(2024)* — a tiny game about a sheep in space, inspired by *Super Mario Galaxy*. Capstone project for MMC 250: Game Environments & Interaction (CCAC). Available on [itch.io/truckle12](https://truckle12.itch.io/).

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## Relevant Professional Experience

### Waymo — Staff Technical Program Manager · Nov 2020 – Present
Lead complex, safety-critical software programs across autonomous-vehicle stacks. Skills directly transferable to game development:
- **Systems thinking at scale:** Orchestrated the Vulnerable Road User safety portfolio across 7 engineering teams and 140+ engineers — the same kind of multi-system coordination that gameplay programming demands.
- **AI-assisted development:** Partnered with SWE teams on Waymo's DevAI adoption program — evaluating AI coding tools, improving onboarding, and identifying practical workflows where AI assistance reduces engineering toil. Same hands-on familiarity with the AI dev stack used in modern game studios.
- **Tools & pipeline engineering:** Designed and launched "Waymo Clusters," a centralized problem-tracking platform; built the underlying schema, SQL logic, and dashboards. The same tool-builder instinct that powers good indie dev workflows.
- **Shipping under constraint:** Owned operational readiness and live launch tracking for high-visibility driverless rollouts; comfortable with hard release windows, regressions, and live ops.
- **Outcome:** 96% reduction in VRU Incidents Per Billion Miles, surpassing human safety benchmarks.

### Uber ATG — Technical Program Manager II · Feb 2019 – Nov 2020
- Directed cross-functional research programs in **Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and Motion Planning** — applicable to procedural systems, AI agents, and physics-driven gameplay.
- Managed full software release cycles including simulation, closed-loop testing, and validation — same release discipline applied to game builds and patches.

### Microsoft — Product Manager II · June 2016 – Feb 2019
- Led the **Windows Energy Efficiency** team shipping power management features (Modern Standby, Adaptive Hibernate, Software-Defined Battery, Power UX) across millions of Windows devices.
- Designed OS-level telemetry pipelines — directly relevant to game analytics, perf profiling, and player-behavior instrumentation.
- **Issued patent US 10,394,301:** Per-Screen/Session Power Consumption Profiling.

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## Education

- **M.S. in Computer Science** — Georgia Institute of Technology · *Expected 2027*
  *Specialization: Human-Computer Interaction, Machine Learning, Robotics*
- **Multimedia & Game Design Certificate** — Community College of Allegheny County · *Expected 2027*
- **M.B.A., Data Analytics** — University of Maryland, Smith School of Business · 2018
- **B.S. in Computer Science** — University of Maryland · 2015
- **B.S. in Psychology** — University of Maryland · 2015 *(grounded in cognition, perception, and motivation — directly applicable to player-centered design)*
- **Human-Computer Interaction for UX Design** — MIT · 2020

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## Skills

- **Engine & Tools:** Unity 6 (URP), C#, Game Creator 2, Visual Studio / Rider, Git, Synty POLYGON asset workflows.
- **Design:** Narrative systems, gameplay loops, level design, mechanics prototyping, player psychology, UX.
- **Programming:** C#, C/C++, Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, SQL, HTML/CSS, R.
- **Production:** Solo-dev pipeline, scope/MVP discipline, cross-functional leadership, release management, live ops.
- **Adjacent:** AI/ML pipelines, perception systems, telemetry & analytics, HCI/UX research, indie publishing (itch.io, Steam).