Currently
Software Engineer at Zynga (AdTech), since May 2025.
AdTech team: AI tooling and ad projects.
Property of
LucasChen
Software Engineer at 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.
if found, please return to…
- LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/lucasichen
- GitHubgithub.com/lucasichen
- Résumélucasichen.me/resume
McMaster ’25
B.Eng., Software Engineering (Co-op)
Experience
Where I’ve been working
Newest first: 6 roles over 5 years, from InsideDesk to Zynga.
now
Software EngineerZynga
May 2025 – Present · 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.
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.
teaching
Teaching AssistantMcMaster University
Sep 2022 – Apr 2023 · Hamilton, ON
- 1P13 Integrated Engineering Project (Sep–Dec 2022).
- 2GA3 Computer Architecture (Jan–Apr 2023).
internship
Software Engineering InternExchange Solutions
May 2022 – Aug 2022
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.
research
AI Research MemberMcMaster Artificial Intelligence Society
Oct 2021 – 2022 · 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.
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%.
Impact
Sketches from Zynga AdTech
3 things from my work at Zynga AdTech, drawn the way I’d explain them on a whiteboard. Only real numbers.
Ad-config MCP
Designed & led by me
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.
LiveOps agent
I worked on an AI LiveOps agent that cut a workflow from 2–3 hours to about 20 minutes.
- Before
- 2–3 h
- After
- ~20 min
Time to complete one LiveOps workflow
High-value ads
Designed & led by me
I designed and led a project that helps games identify high-value ads.
Projects
Things I’ve built
Side projects, taped in as I finished them: snapshots of each one with my notes underneath. Newest first.
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.
- 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.
- TypeScript
- Playwright
- React
- Express
- PostgreSQL
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.
- React
- Vite
- MUI
- Auth0
- Chart.js
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.
- React Native
- Python
- Flask
- Firebase
- Google Maps Platform
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.
★ 2nd place, “To Work or Not To Workout” sponsor challenge (AI Endurance), DeltaHacks 8
- React
- Fitbit Web API
- styled-components
- Node.js
- Figma
Also in the notebook
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.
Skills
What’s in my toolkit
A mind map of the tools I reach for, grouped the way I think about them.
Languages
TypeScript · JavaScript · Python · Java · C# · SQL · HTML/CSS · Bash
Frontend
React · React Native · Next.js · Vite · MUI · TanStack Query
Backend & data
Node.js · Express · .NET · Flask · Prisma · PostgreSQL · MongoDB · Azure Cosmos DB · Firebase · DynamoDB · Swagger
AI & agents
Model Context Protocol (MCP) · Claude Agent SDK · Claude Code · Cursor
Testing & automation
Playwright · Vitest · Jest · Selenium
Infra & tooling
Docker · Git · GitHub Actions · GitLab CI · Vercel · AWS (Lambda, S3) · Auth0 · Azure DevOps
Where I learned it
B.Eng., Software Engineering (Co-op), McMaster University, 2025
Dean's Honour List (2020–2023) · McMaster Honour Award (2020–2023) · Courses: System Design, Data Structures and Algorithms, OOP, Software Design, Databases
Contact
Let’s talk!
I’m Lucas, a software engineer at Zynga AdTech in Toronto. Roles, hard problems and good conversations are all welcome. The quickest ways to reach me:
- GitHubgithub.com/lucasichenthe code behind the projects
- LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/lucasichensay hi, or send a role my way
- Résumélucasichen.me/resumeone page, printable
- PDFLucas-Chen-Resume.pdfthe same résumé, to download
— Lucas