Open to opportunities

Giacomo Mariani

@giacomomariani

Message

Unity tech lead with 15+ years shipping multiplayer Unity C# titles and agentic-AI workflows for reliable releases.

Italy

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a team that needs a Unity Tech Lead to build clean, deterministic foundations and reliable releases—while integrating agentic-AI workflows to accelerate implementation and improve everyday engineering velocity.

I’m a Unity Tech Lead with 15+ years and 20+ shipped titles, including a mobile FPS at 100M+ downloads. I design the systems games run on—and the team practices that ship them—so releases stay reliable under real constraints.

I’m hands-on across mobile, PC, console, VR, and cloud, with deep experience in deterministic and real-time multiplayer using Photon Quantum, Photon Fusion, PlayFab, and ENet. I build clean foundations with Unity DOTS, gameplay architecture, design patterns, Addressables, and GPU/CPU optimisation—plus Unity editor tooling and save systems that scale.

I’m also an agentic-AI early adopter, integrating Codex, Junie, and Claude into production pipelines to improve AI-assisted implementation workflows via prompt engineering and automation. Teams come to me when they need dependable architecture, performance wins, and pragmatic leadership from pre-production to release.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Unity Lead Developer

Happy Volcano

Jan 2023 - Apr 2024 (1 year 3 months)

Led a team of 10 through architecture and multi-platform console/mobile release for You Suck at Parking and its backend services. Drove GPU/VRAM optimisation and deterministic multiplayer using Photon Quantum/Photon Fusion with PlayFab.

Unity C#Photon Photon Fusion Playfab Azure Functions AWS Firebase LiveOps Addressables Deterministic Multiplayer CI CD NUnit

Unity Lead Developer

The Nestinars

Jan 2020 - Jan 2023 (3 years)

Owned DOTS-based architecture for a large-scale grand strategy simulation and built key systems for content and persistence. Developed a procedural globe pipeline generating 1M+ hex tiles and implemented a high-performance save system.

Unity C#DoT Procedural Generation Procedural Hex Tiles Save Systems Editor Tooling Grand Strategy Simulation

Unity Lead Developer

Navalua Family

Mar 2018 - Jan 2020 (1 year 10 months)

Led architecture for a PlayFab-backed mobile city-builder (Slime Shop) including authentication, player data, and marketplace support. Provided code review and mentoring while coordinating remote-first delivery using Agile practices.

Unity C#Playfab Authentication Marketplace Code Review Mentoring Cross Functional Collaboration Agile Scrum Kanban

Unity Lead Developer

Vertigo Games Ltd

Oct 2016 - Mar 2018 (1 year 5 months)

Architected core C# and Photon multiplayer for a mobile FPS (Critical Strike Online) with 100M+ downloads. Led a cross-functional team of 5 from architecture through alpha release.

Unity C#Photon Cross Functional Team Leadership Game Development

Unity Senior Developer

ADX Net

May 2016 - Oct 2016 (5 months)

Implemented LiveOps for an online gaming platform, covering automated testing, user data storage, and analytics. Worked on Gamesmart’s LiveOps capabilities in a contractor role.

Unity LiveOps Automated Testing Analytics Software Development

Unity Developer

MGD – Effective Education

Jul 2014 - May 2016 (1 year 10 months)

Designed and built an educational game for K–12 students as part of an education technology offering that was later discontinued. Delivered the game experience end-to-end for the target student audience.

Unity Game Design Educational Gaming

Game Leader

Introwizard LLC

May 2013 - Jul 2014 (1 year 2 months)

Shipped a PvP city-building kit to the Unity Asset Store and contributed as a game leader for the studio’s Unity initiatives. Supported publishing and iterative delivery for the asset kit.

Unity Unity Assets PVP Asset Kits Game Publishing

Narrative Designer & Unity Assistant

Arakion LLC

Oct 2012 - May 2013 (7 months)

Provided code review and narrative design support for an early-stage Steam RPG (Arakion). Delivered feedback and assistance to support development iteration.

Unity Code Review Narrative Design Feedback RPG Development

Setting Leader

Atomic Blue

Sep 2009 - Oct 2012 (3 years 1 month)

Led setting and quest design work for a 3D MMORPG (PlaneShift) and contributed code-driven content. Owned content design tasks for MMORPG development during the release cycle.

MMORPGs Quest Design Code Driven Content PlaneShift