Lucas Chen

6 roles, newest first.

1. Software Engineer

   Zynga

   NowMay 2025 – PresentFull-timeToronto, ON

   AdTech team: AI tooling and ad projects.

   • 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.
2. Full Stack Engineering Intern

   Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence

   May 2023 – Jun 2024Internship

   • 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.
3. Teaching Assistant

   McMaster University

   Sep 2022 – Apr 2023TeachingHamilton, ON

   • 1P13 Integrated Engineering Project (Sep–Dec 2022).
   • 2GA3 Computer Architecture (Jan–Apr 2023).
4. Software Engineering Intern

   Exchange Solutions

   May 2022 – Aug 2022Internship

   E-commerce and loyalty platforms: a Shopify app on AWS, plus AR, blockchain and data-visualization work.

   • 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.
5. AI Research Member

   McMaster Artificial Intelligence Society

   Oct 2021 – 2022ResearchHamilton, ON

   • 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.
6. Software Engineering Intern

   InsideDesk

   Jun 2021 – Sep 2021Internship

   • 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%.

3 highlights from Zynga AdTech, kept high-level.

• Zynga · AdTechDesigned & led

  Ad-config MCP

  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.

  • AI
  • MCP
  • AdTech
  • Leadership

• Zynga · AdTech

  LiveOps agent

  2–3 h → ~20 min

  • 2–3 h
  • ~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.

  • AI agents
  • LiveOps
  • Automation

• Zynga · AdTechDesigned & led

  High-value ads

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

  • AdTech
  • Leadership

Side projects and hackathon builds, newest first. Every listing has a screenshot and, where I wrote one, a case study.

1. AP

   Agent Platform

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

   Case study

   agent-platform

   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.

   Aug 2026 – present · Solo: spec, design and CLI (in progress)

   • TypeScript
   • Node.js
   • JSON Schema (Ajv)
   • Commander
   • YAML

   GitHub

2. TB

   TennisBooker

   Books tennis and pickleball courts the moment booking opens, every morning.

   Case study

   tennisbooker.app

   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.

   2023 – present · Solo, full-stack (2023 version with help from Douglas Chen)

   • TypeScript
   • Playwright
   • React
   • Express
   • PostgreSQL
   • Auth0

   GitHub (2023 version)

3. PA

   PlatefulAI

   Mobile meal planner: pick meals, get a grocery list, track calories and protein.

   Case study

   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.

   Nov – Dec 2024 · Team of 5: app shell, Auth0 login, meal-planning flow, deploy

   • React
   • Vite
   • MUI
   • Auth0
   • Chart.js
   • Vercel

   Live demo

4. CX

   CarpoolX

   Android app that matches riders headed the same way so they can share a taxi.

   Case study

   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.

   Mar – Apr 2023 · Team of 4: repo lead, most of the Flask backend and auth, core screens

   • React Native
   • Python
   • Flask
   • Firebase
   • Google Maps Platform

   GitHub

5. RD

   Rest Day

   A workout planner that schedules rest days, not just workouts. Built at DeltaHacks 8.

   Case study

   restday.tech

   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.

   Jan 2022 · Team of 2: Fitbit API integration, landing page, deploy

   ★ 2nd place, “To Work or Not To Workout” sponsor challenge (AI Endurance), DeltaHacks 8

   • React
   • Fitbit Web API
   • styled-components
   • Node.js
   • Figma

   DevpostGitHub

More in the gallery

• SS
  StudySpotFind a place to study at McMaster: search, filters, ratings, favourites and a map.
• UP
  UnPasswordA password manager built in one day for the MEC 2024 programming challenge.
• AR
  API ResumeMy resume as a REST API: Postman-only, rate-limited, with a joke for anyone who POSTs.
• RH
  Ride HomeMix subway sounds, chatter and lo-fi music into your own TTC ride-home ambience.
• SU
  Summary.ioUpload a lecture video and get an AI transcript to study from. Built at MacHacks 2.

• GitHubgithub.com/lucasichen
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/lucasichen
• Résumélucasichen.me/resume
• Résumé PDFLucas-Chen-Resume.pdf

Say hi on LinkedIn, or look through the code on GitHub.