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Software engineer building AI tooling and ad tech at Zynga.
Story, art & code: Lucas Chen · Toronto · 2026
I'm a software engineer on Zynga's AdTech team in Toronto.
Software Engineer, Zynga AdTech, Toronto. Since May 2025.
Origin: McMaster University, B.Eng., Software Engineering (Co-op), 2020–2025.
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.
Origin story
Newest first: 6 chapters, from Zynga back to InsideDesk.
Now
May 2025 – Present · Toronto, ON
AdTech team: AI tooling and ad projects.
2–3 h became ~20 min!
Internship
May 2023 – Jun 2024
Teaching
Sep 2022 – Apr 2023 · Hamilton, ON
Internship
May 2022 – Aug 2022
E-commerce and loyalty platforms: a Shopify app on AWS, plus AR, blockchain and data-visualization work.
Research
Oct 2021 – 2022 · Hamilton, ON
Internship
Jun 2021 – Sep 2021
Splash pages
Three things from Zynga AdTech, splashed across the page. Real work, told big.
Designed & led by Lucas
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.
Before2–3 h
After~20 min
Time to complete one LiveOps workflow
I worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a workflow from 2–3 hours to about 20 minutes.
Designed & led by Lucas
I designed and led a project that helps games identify high-value ads.
Other titles
More from the same universe: spin-offs, one-shots and experiments, newest first. Each cover is a snapshot of the real thing.
A control plane for safely delegating software work to autonomous coding agents.
Year2026A 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.
Books tennis and pickleball courts the moment booking opens, every morning.
Year2026My 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.
Mobile meal planner: pick meals, get a grocery list, track calories and protein.
Year2024A 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.
Android app that matches riders headed the same way so they can share a taxi.
Year2023CarpoolX 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.
A workout planner that schedules rest days, not just workouts. Built at DeltaHacks 8.
Year2022★ 2nd place, “To Work or Not To Workout” sponsor challenge (AI Endurance), DeltaHacks 8
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.
StudySpot · Nov 2024
Find a place to study at McMaster: search, filters, ratings, favourites and a map.
UnPassword · Nov 2024
A password manager built in one day for the MEC 2024 programming challenge.
API Resume · Oct 2023
My resume as a REST API: Postman-only, rate-limited, with a joke for anyone who POSTs.
Ride Home · Jun 2022
Mix subway sounds, chatter and lo-fi music into your own TTC ride-home ambience.
Summary.io · Jan 2022
Upload a lecture video and get an AI transcript to study from. Built at MacHacks 2.
Powers
The toolkit of Toronto’s resident engineer. Every block on a meter is one tool he uses.
Letters
Letters to the editor
Dear reader: I’m Lucas, a software engineer at Zynga AdTech in Toronto. Roles, hard problems and good conversations are all welcome. Send a letter the quickest way:
Yours in ink, Lucas
Meanwhile, at the desk…
To be
continued…
Next issue: your project, maybe?
The Comic Book edition: the same facts as every other version, in a different shape.
| Intro | Comic cover |
|---|---|
| Experience | Origin story in panels |
| Impact | Splash pages |
| Projects | Other titles in the series |
| Skills | Powers & abilities |
| Contact | Letters page |
Paper palette · Grotesk type · Kinetic motion
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