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.
01 /
Log
tail -n 6 career.log
2025-05 → nowzynga::software_engineer@toronto_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.
2023-05 → 2024-06hexagon_manufacturing_intelligence::full_stack_engineering_intern
├─ 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.
2022-09 → 2023-04mcmaster_university::teaching_assistant@hamilton_on
├─ 1P13 Integrated Engineering Project (Sep–Dec 2022).
└─ 2GA3 Computer Architecture (Jan–Apr 2023).
2022-05 → 2022-08exchange_solutions::software_engineering_intern
│ 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.
└─ Built a real-time data visualization dashboard (D3.js, Snowflake), improving early error catching and data comparisons by over 10%.
2021-10 → 2022mcmaster_artificial_intelligence_society::ai_research_member@hamilton_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.
2021-06 → 2021-09insidedesk::software_engineering_intern
├─ 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%.
02 /
Telemetry
source: zynga/adtech · detail: high-level
LiveOps agent
I worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a workflow from 2–3 hours to about 20 minutes.
High-value ads
I designed and led a project that helps games identify high-value ads.
03 /
Detections
10 objects · hover to scan
Agent Platform
A control plane for safely delegating software work to autonomous coding agents.
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.
role: Solo: spec, design and CLI (in progress)
- TypeScript
- Node.js
- JSON Schema (Ajv)
- Commander
- YAML
TennisBooker
Books tennis and pickleball courts the moment booking opens, every morning.
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.
role: Solo, full-stack (2023 version with help from Douglas Chen)
- TypeScript
- Playwright
- React
- Express
- PostgreSQL
- Auth0
- Docker
PlatefulAI
Mobile meal planner: pick meals, get a grocery list, track calories and protein.
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.
role: Team of 5: app shell, Auth0 login, meal-planning flow, deploy
- React
- Vite
- MUI
- Auth0
- Chart.js
- Vercel
StudySpot
Find a place to study at McMaster: search, filters, ratings, favourites and a map.
A mobile-first prototype for finding study spots on McMaster’s campus: search and filter spots, save favourites, mark places visited, rate them, and see them on a map around you.
role: Solo, front-end
- React
- Vite
- Leaflet
- React Router
- Vercel
UnPassword
A password manager built in one day for the MEC 2024 programming challenge.
A password manager with Auth0 sign-in, an Express API, and passwords encrypted before they are stored in Firebase. I built it in one day with Willie Pai and Mohammad Mohsin Khan for the MEC 2024 programming challenge.
role: Team: Auth0 login, JWT-secured API, dashboard-to-API wiring
- React
- TypeScript
- Vite
- Ant Design
- Express
- Auth0
- Firebase
API Resume
My resume as a REST API: Postman-only, rate-limited, with a joke for anyone who POSTs.
An Express + MongoDB API that serves my resume as JSON, one section at a time or all at once. Inspired by Eric Lake’s API resume.
role: Solo
- Node.js
- Express
- MongoDB
- Mongoose
- Vercel
CarpoolX
Android app that matches riders headed the same way so they can share a taxi.
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.
role: Team of 4: repo lead, most of the Flask backend and auth, core screens
- React Native
- Python
- Flask
- Firebase
- Google Maps Platform
Ride Home
Mix subway sounds, chatter and lo-fi music into your own TTC ride-home ambience.
A small ambient-sound web app inspired by ridethesubway: sliders blend subway ambience, background chatter and lo-fi music over a train illustration by the artist mienar.
role: Co-created with Quinn Ha; built the app and audio controls
- React
- Sass
- MUI
- AWS S3
- Netlify
Summary.io
Upload a lecture video and get an AI transcript to study from. Built at MacHacks 2.
A study tool for recorded lectures: upload a video, watch it beside an AssemblyAI speech-to-text transcript, and (the plan) drag snippets onto your slides to export as a PDF. In 36 hours our team of four built upload, playback and transcription.
role: Team of 4: AssemblyAI integration, repo setup and write-up
- React
- AssemblyAI
- Node.js
- Express
Rest Day
A workout planner that schedules rest days, not just workouts. Built at 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.
role: Team of 2: Fitbit API integration, landing page, deploy
- React
- Fitbit Web API
- styled-components
- Node.js
- Figma
04 /
Env
printenv | grep -i skill
$ env | grep -i skill
LANGUAGES=
FRONTEND=
BACKEND_DATA=
AI_AGENTS=
TESTING_AUTOMATION=
INFRA_TOOLING=
$ cat education.txt
B.Eng., Software Engineering (Co-op) — McMaster University (2020–2025) · Dean's Honour List (2020–2023) · McMaster Honour Award (2020–2023) · Courses: System Design, Data Structures and Algorithms, OOP, Software Design, Databases
05 /
Open a channel
$ contact --list
- github github.com/lucasichen
- linkedinlinkedin.com/in/lucasichen
- résumé lucasichen.me/resume
$