Platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, Windows
Tech stack: C#, C++, Python, Unity, Java, Objective-C, Javascript
Website: Sphero Public SDK

Sphero is one of the best names in educational tech. Their combination of robots, coding tools, and learning materials all reinforced the company motto “Play Is a Powerful Teacher.”  I started as Unity engineer, but took every opportunity I could to broaden my horizons and develop a liking for working in hands-on full-stack environments.  It was truly a transformative career experience.

Contributions

• I helped build new mini-games and optimize performance for the release of the Sphero Play app, a more casual counterpart of the Sphero EDU app.
• Once the app release cycle slowed down, I had a chance to start taking on tasks outside of Unity develepment, such as prototyping product ideas, learning to work on firmware, and eventually I migrated into the core SDK team.  I gained valuable experience by working on the low-level cross-platform SDK powering all the software our customer base used on a daily basis.
• That experience enabled me to drive the development of the public Sphero SDK, which was being developed as part of the release of the Sphero RVR.  The SDK is still available on GitHub to this day, and anyone with a Raspberry-Pi can use it to build some remarkable projects with RVR.  I personally contributed a passion project of turning the RVR into a long-distance RC vehicle.
• I was able to mentor a group of summer interns during the lead-up to the Sphero Hackathon where we invited 10 fans to come to our headquarters in Boulder, CO and compete in robotics challenges we put together for them.  The event was live-streamed in promotion of our RVR Kickstarter campaign.  This experience was where underlying sense of camaraderie pervasive throughout the company really shone through.