Rian Drake

Rian Drake has a diverse work experience in the gaming industry. They started their career at Grinding Gear Games in 2015, where they initially worked as a Game Programmer and Tools Programmer for Path of Exile. During their time there, they implemented various game mechanics and identified opportunities for process improvements.

In 2019, Rian joined RocketWerkz as a Senior Tools Programmer, specializing in Tools Development for the creation of Icarus in Unreal Engine 4. They developed in-editor tools, plugins, and modules to facilitate content creation and generated code and metadata to assist with development.

Halfway through the development of Icarus, Rian was promoted to the position of Principal Programmer. In this role, they provided mentorship and leadership to other programmers, guiding technical discussions and writing documentation outlining feature requirements and implementation.

After the release of Icarus, Rian was offered a position as the Head of Engineering at RocketWerkz. In this role, their responsibilities include mentoring technical team members and investigating and researching technical best practices and tooling to guide the technical ecosystem.

Rian Drake began their education at Rosmini College in 2004 and completed their studies in 2010. During this time, they pursued a wide range of subjects including Physics, Calculus, Statistics, English, and Music, earning their NCEA Level 3 degree. Following their completion at Rosmini College, Rian went on to attend the Media Design School from 2012 to 2015. Here, they specialized in Games Development and obtained their Bachelor of Software Engineering degree.