Front page · Zynga AdTech

Local engineer helps turn a 2⁠–⁠3 hour task into about 20 minutes

The software engineer on Zynga’s AdTech team also designed and led two in-house projects: Ad-config MCP and High-value ads.

By Lucas Chen · Software Engineer, Zynga AdTech · Toronto

I'm a software engineer on Zynga's AdTech team in Toronto. I designed and led our internal tooling for ad-serving configurations, an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and tools that let AI assistants work with ad-serving configuration, and a project that helps our games identify high-value ads. I also worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a 2–3 hour workflow to about 20 minutes.

Software engineer building AI tooling and ad tech at Zynga.

Outside work, I automate things I'd rather not do by hand. My longest-running side project started in 2023 as a Playwright script that booked my parents' tennis courts the moment booking opened; it's now a TypeScript monorepo with a web app, an API and a bot that runs every morning on a Raspberry Pi. Right now I'm building a platform for delegating software work to coding agents, where results have to be verified independently instead of taken on the agent's word.

I studied Software Engineering (Co-op) at McMaster University. Along the way I interned at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Exchange Solutions and InsideDesk, was a teaching assistant for two engineering courses, and built projects at DeltaHacks, MacHacks and MEC.

B1The Lucas LedgerMonday, September 28, 2026

Business

Company news, newest first: where Lucas has worked and what got done.

Zynga · Current role

Software Engineer at Zynga

AdTech team: AI tooling and ad projects.

Toronto · May 2025 – Present

Designed and led internal tooling for ad-serving configurations: an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and tools that let AI assistants work with ad-serving configuration.

Worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a workflow from 2–3 hours to about 20 minutes.

Designed and led a project that helps games identify high-value ads.

Internship
Full Stack Engineering InternHexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
May 2023 – Jun 2024
Developed 15+ UI and 10+ API production features for the Nexus Platform, using React and Express with TypeScript.
Reduced load times for user list pages by 97% by optimizing API calls and refining Express APIs.
Cut test automation start-up time by up to 98% by parallelizing the Playwright test suite setup.
Reduced API response time by up to 82% with an Azure Cosmos DB proxy that moved Express APIs to C# .NET database pagination.
Filed under TypeScript · React · Express · C# · .NET · Azure Cosmos DB · Playwright
Teaching
Teaching AssistantMcMaster University
Hamilton · Sep 2022 – Apr 2023
1P13 Integrated Engineering Project (Sep–Dec 2022).
2GA3 Computer Architecture (Jan–Apr 2023).
Internship
Software Engineering InternExchange Solutions
May 2022 – Aug 2022
Made e-commerce client onboarding over 10x faster by building AWS Lambda components.
Led an augmented reality proof of concept for a national loyalty program, built with 8th Wall WebAR and JavaScript.
Raised a loyalty platform’s user engagement by 4% by integrating it with blockchain assets, using Next.js, Ethereum and the Alchemy API.
Built a real-time data visualization dashboard (D3.js, Snowflake), improving early error catching and data comparisons by over 10%.
Filed under AWS Lambda · JavaScript · Next.js · D3.js · Snowflake · 8th Wall WebAR · Shopify API
Research
AI Research MemberMcMaster Artificial Intelligence Society
Hamilton · Oct 2021 – 2022
Worked with a team of four developers on training a humanoid to walk and navigate obstacles in a ragdoll physics simulation.
Used C# and Unity to train and simulate the humanoid.
Filed under C# · Unity
Internship
Software Engineering InternInsideDesk
Jun 2021 – Sep 2021
Found 50+ bugs through QA testing, validated bug fixes, and was the link between clients and the development team.
Cut manual tasks by over 30% with custom JavaScript Slack bots that automate the customer onboarding notifications.
Wrote automated end-to-end UI tests with Selenium and Python, cutting manual QA testing by 40%.
Filed under JavaScript · Python · Selenium · Slack

C1The Lucas LedgerMonday, September 28, 2026

Tech

3 stories from Zynga AdTech: AI tooling, agents and ads.

By the numbers

AI agents · LiveOps · Automation

LiveOps agent: 2⁠–⁠3 hours down to about 20 minutes

With Lucas Chen · Zynga AdTech

I worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a workflow from 2–3 hours to about 20 minutes.

Ad-config MCP: how it fits together.Ledger graphics

AI · MCP · AdTech · Leadership

Ad-config MCP

Designed and led by Lucas Chen

I designed and led internal tooling for ad-serving configurations at Zynga: a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server and tools that let AI assistants work with ad-serving configuration.

High-value ads: how it fits together.Ledger graphics

AdTech · Leadership

High-value ads

Designed and led by Lucas Chen

I designed and led a project that helps games identify high-value ads.

D1The Lucas LedgerMonday, September 28, 2026

Features

Side projects, told at length: what was built, with whom, and where to see it.

Agent Platform: A control plane for safely delegating software work to autonomous coding agents.Illustration · Ledger graphics

Cover story · Tooling · Aug 2026 – present

Agent Platform

A control plane for safely delegating software work to autonomous coding agents.

By Lucas Chen · Solo: spec, design and CLI (in progress)

A harness-agnostic platform for handing software work to coding agents in Cursor, Claude Code or any other harness. The goal, from my spec: maximize architecture-approved, verified engineering output per dollar and per minute of human attention.

Wrote the v3 spec: missions, workflow templates, task and role contracts, review gates, model routing, memory and fleet security.

Built the “agent” control-plane CLI in TypeScript: it scaffolds a target repo, validates artifacts against JSON Schemas and runs the claim → start → submit → gate loop.

Workers never certify their own work: a task passes only with an evidence bundle, independent verification, and spec, quality and architecture review.

Routes each task by risk to a capability tier (frontier, strong, mid, cheap), mapped to models by policy instead of hard-coded vendors.

Filed under TypeScript · Node.js · JSON Schema (Ajv) · Commander · YAML

Full story (case study) →GitHub →

Books tennis and pickleball courts the moment booking opens, every morning.Ledger graphics
Product · 2023 – present
TennisBooker
By Lucas Chen · Solo, full-stack (2023 version with help from Douglas Chen)
My parents had to set a 7:30 a.m. alarm every week to get courts at our local club, so I automated it. Members set weekly schedules in a web app, and a bot books the courts each morning and texts the results. With Douglas Chen.
Filed under TypeScript · Playwright · React · Express · PostgreSQL
Full story (case study) →GitHub (2023 version) →
Mobile meal planner: pick meals, get a grocery list, track calories and protein.Ledger graphics
Product · Nov – Dec 2024
PlatefulAI
By Lucas Chen · Team of 5: app shell, Auth0 login, meal-planning flow, deploy
A mobile-first meal planner: choose meals and servings, turn them into a grocery list, and track calories and protein against personal targets. Our team of five built it as a front-end prototype on mock meal data, so the “AI-powered meal prep” step is a UI concept. With Mohammad Mohsin Khan, Wajdan Faheem, Jasmine Sun-Hu, Hammad.
Filed under React · Vite · MUI · Auth0 · Chart.js
Full story (case study) →Live demo →
Android app that matches riders headed the same way so they can share a taxi.Ledger graphics
Product · Mar – Apr 2023
CarpoolX
By Lucas Chen · Team of 4: repo lead, most of the Flask backend and auth, core screens
CarpoolX matches riders heading to the same destination so they can share a taxi and split the fare, with an upfront fare estimate and safety checks for riding with strangers. Four of us built it as a React Native Android app on a Flask and Firebase backend. With Henushan Bala, Rafeed Iqbal, Allison Cook.
Filed under React Native · Python · Flask · Firebase · Google Maps Platform
Full story (case study) →GitHub →
A workout planner that schedules rest days, not just workouts. Built at DeltaHacks 8.Ledger graphics
Hackathon · Jan 2022
Rest Day
By Lucas Chen · Team of 2: Fitbit API integration, landing page, deploy
A weekly workout planner that deliberately schedules rest days, designed to use Fitbit sleep and activity data to decide when to train and when to recover. Willie Pai and I built it in 36 hours at DeltaHacks 8. With Willie Pai.
★ 2nd place, “To Work or Not To Workout” sponsor challenge (AI Endurance), DeltaHacks 8
Filed under React · Fitbit Web API · styled-components · Node.js · Figma
Full story (case study) →Devpost →GitHub →

E1The Lucas LedgerMonday, September 28, 2026

Markets

The skills exchange: the tools Lucas works with, listed by sector.

6 sectors41 listingsSymbols are abbreviations, not trading codes

Languages
Symbol	Name
TS	TypeScript
JS	JavaScript
PYTH	Python
JAVA	Java
C#	C#
SQL	SQL
HC	HTML/CSS
BASH	Bash

Frontend
Symbol	Name
REAC	React
RN	React Native
NEXT	Next.js
VITE	Vite
MUI	MUI
TQ	TanStack Query

Backend & data
Symbol	Name
NODE	Node.js
EXPR	Express
NET	.NET
FLAS	Flask
PRIS	Prisma
PSQL	PostgreSQL
MDB	MongoDB
ACD	Azure Cosmos DB
FIRE	Firebase
DDB	DynamoDB
SWAG	Swagger

AI & agents
Symbol	Name
MCP	Model Context Protocol (MCP)
CAS	Claude Agent SDK
CC	Claude Code
CURS	Cursor

Testing & automation
Symbol	Name
PLAY	Playwright
VITE	Vitest
JEST	Jest
SELE	Selenium

Infra & tooling
Symbol	Name
DOCK	Docker
GIT	Git
GA	GitHub Actions
GC	GitLab CI
VERC	Vercel
LAMBD	AWS (Lambda, S3)
AUTH	Auth0
AD	Azure DevOps

F1The Lucas LedgerMonday, September 28, 2026

Classifieds

Help wanted, notices and other small print. Replies welcome.

Display advertisement

Now hiring? Talk to Lucas.

Software engineer building AI tooling and ad tech at Zynga.

Résumé available
One page, printable, no fluff. Pick up a copy at: lucasichen.me/resume
Help wanted?
Software Engineer, Zynga AdTech, Toronto. AI tooling, agents and ad tech. Recruiters and hiring managers, reply to box: linkedin.com/in/lucasichen
Code, free to a good home
Side projects, hackathon builds and experiments, source included. Inspect at: github.com/lucasichen
Wanted: readers with opinions
Prefer another layout? This paper is reprinted to order. Pick a new look at the front desk: Remix this portfolio
Also available
The same résumé as a one-page PDF: Lucas-Chen-Resume.pdf. And as JSON, for parsers and the curious: resume.json

Intro	Front page
Experience	Business section
Impact	Tech headlines
Projects	Feature stories
Skills	Market listings
Contact	Classifieds

Local engineer helps turn a 2⁠–⁠3 hour task into about 20 minutes

Software Engineer at Zynga

Full Stack Engineering InternHexagon Manufacturing Intelligence

Teaching AssistantMcMaster University

Software Engineering InternExchange Solutions

AI Research MemberMcMaster Artificial Intelligence Society

Software Engineering InternInsideDesk

LiveOps agent: 2⁠–⁠3 hours down to about 20 minutes

Ad-config MCP

High-value ads

Agent Platform

TennisBooker

PlatefulAI

CarpoolX

Rest Day