A cookbook by Lucas Chen

Lucas’s KitchenRecipes for Shipping Software

Software Engineer at Zynga AdTech · Toronto

A note from the chef

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.

Head cook: Software Engineer at Zynga AdTech, since May 2025. Trained at McMaster University, Software Engineering (Co-op).

Chapter 1 · Recipes

Recipes I’ve cooked up

Every role is a recipe card, newest first: who it served, when it was prepped, what went in and how it was made. 6 recipes, from Zynga back to InsideDesk.

  1. Software Engineer

    Zyngafresh out of the oven

    From the kitchen of
    Serves
    Zynga AdTech
    Prep
    May 2025 – Present
    Course
    Full-time
    Kitchen
    Toronto, ON

    AdTech team: AI tooling and ad projects.

    Ingredients

    Method

    1. 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.
    2. Worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a workflow from 2–3 hours to about 20 minutes.
    3. Designed and led a project that helps games identify high-value ads.

  2. Full Stack Engineering Intern

    Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence

    From the kitchen of
    Serves
    Hexagon
    Prep
    May 2023 – Jun 2024
    Course
    Internship

    Ingredients

    Method

    1. Developed 15+ UI and 10+ API production features for the Nexus Platform, using React and Express with TypeScript.
    2. Reduced load times for user list pages by 97% by optimizing API calls and refining Express APIs.
    3. Cut test automation start-up time by up to 98% by parallelizing the Playwright test suite setup.
    4. Reduced API response time by up to 82% with an Azure Cosmos DB proxy that moved Express APIs to C# .NET database pagination.

  3. Teaching Assistant

    McMaster University

    From the kitchen of
    Serves
    McMaster TA
    Prep
    Sep 2022 – Apr 2023
    Course
    Teaching
    Kitchen
    Hamilton, ON

    Method

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

  4. Software Engineering Intern

    Exchange Solutions

    From the kitchen of
    Serves
    Exchange Solutions
    Prep
    May 2022 – Aug 2022
    Course
    Internship

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

    Ingredients

    Method

    1. Made e-commerce client onboarding over 10x faster by building AWS Lambda components.
    2. Led an augmented reality proof of concept for a national loyalty program, built with 8th Wall WebAR and JavaScript.
    3. Raised a loyalty platform’s user engagement by 4% by integrating it with blockchain assets, using Next.js, Ethereum and the Alchemy API.
    4. Built a real-time data visualization dashboard (D3.js, Snowflake), improving early error catching and data comparisons by over 10%.

  5. AI Research Member

    McMaster Artificial Intelligence Society

    From the kitchen of
    Serves
    McMaster AI Society
    Prep
    Oct 2021 – 2022
    Course
    Research
    Kitchen
    Hamilton, ON

    Ingredients

    Method

    1. Worked with a team of four developers on training a humanoid to walk and navigate obstacles in a ragdoll physics simulation.
    2. Used C# and Unity to train and simulate the humanoid.

  6. Software Engineering Intern

    InsideDesk

    From the kitchen of
    Serves
    InsideDesk
    Prep
    Jun 2021 – Sep 2021
    Course
    Internship

    Ingredients

    Method

    1. Found 50+ bugs through QA testing, validated bug fixes, and was the link between clients and the development team.
    2. Cut manual tasks by over 30% with custom JavaScript Slack bots that automate the customer onboarding notifications.
    3. Wrote automated end-to-end UI tests with Selenium and Python, cutting manual QA testing by 40%.

Chapter 2 · Chef’s specials

Today’s specials

Three dishes from the Zynga AdTech kitchen: the ones I would put on the board.

  1. Signature dish

    Ad-config MCP

    Chefdesigned & led

    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

  2. Chef’s special

    LiveOps agent

    Prep time2–3 h ~20 min

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

    Before2–3 h
    After~20 min
    Time to complete one LiveOps workflow
    • AI agents
    • LiveOps
    • Automation

  3. Signature dish

    High-value ads

    Chefdesigned & led

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

    • AdTech
    • Leadership

Chapter 3 · The menu

Home cooking

Side projects, made from scratch and plated up here: a photo of each dish, what went into it and a link to the recipe. Newest first.

  1. Agent Platform

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

    Prep
    Aug 2026 – present
    Chef
    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.

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

    Read the recipe GitHub

  2. TennisBooker

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

    Prep
    2023 – present
    Chef
    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.

    • TypeScript
    • Playwright
    • React
    • Express
    • PostgreSQL

    Read the recipe GitHub (2023 version)

  3. PlatefulAI

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

    Prep
    Nov – Dec 2024
    Chef
    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.

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

    Read the recipe Live demo

  4. CarpoolX

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

    Prep
    Mar – Apr 2023
    Chef
    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.

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

    Read the recipe GitHub

  5. Rest Day

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

    Prep
    Jan 2022
    Chef
    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.

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

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

    Read the recipe Devpost GitHub

Small plates

  • StudySpotNov 2024Find a place to study at McMaster: search, filters, ratings, favourites and a map.
  • UnPasswordNov 2024A password manager built in one day for the MEC 2024 programming challenge.
  • API ResumeOct 2023My resume as a REST API: Postman-only, rate-limited, with a joke for anyone who POSTs.
  • Ride HomeJun 2022Mix subway sounds, chatter and lo-fi music into your own TTC ride-home ambience.
  • Summary.ioJan 2022Upload a lecture video and get an AI transcript to study from. Built at MacHacks 2.

Chapter 4 · The pantry

A well-stocked pantry

What I reach for, on the shelf and labelled: 41 ingredients in 6 groups.

Languagesthe spice rack

  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • Python
  • Java
  • C#
  • SQL
  • HTML/CSS
  • Bash

Frontendgarnish & plating

  • React
  • React Native
  • Next.js
  • Vite
  • MUI
  • TanStack Query

Backend & datadry goods & cold storage

  • Node.js
  • Express
  • .NET
  • Flask
  • Prisma
  • PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB
  • Azure Cosmos DB
  • Firebase
  • DynamoDB
  • Swagger

AI & agentsthe secret sauces

  • Model Context Protocol (MCP)
  • Claude Agent SDK
  • Claude Code
  • Cursor

Testing & automationtaste tests

  • Playwright
  • Vitest
  • Jest
  • Selenium

Infra & toolingknives & cookware

  • Docker
  • Git
  • GitHub Actions
  • GitLab CI
  • Vercel
  • AWS (Lambda, S3)
  • Auth0
  • Azure DevOps

Chapter 5 · Book a table

Book a table

I’m Lucas, a software engineer at Zynga AdTech in Toronto. Roles, hard problems and good conversation are all welcome. Pull up a chair: the quickest ways to reach the kitchen are below.

Why this portfolio?

The Recipe Book edition: the same facts as every other version, in a different shape.

How each section of this page is drawn
IntroCookbook cover
ExperienceRecipe cards
ImpactChef’s specials
ProjectsThe menu
SkillsThe pantry
ContactBook a table

Paper palette · Press type · Kinetic motion

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