# Charlie Feuerborn > Product/SWE/Technical Game Design @ 500 Global Startup | Founder @ Open Alpha USC Location: San Francisco, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/charliefeuerborn Grew up in Southern California, loving the sun. I had an incredible experience full of great teachers, friends, and involvements which catapulted me into my success in higher education. I've designed a dozen board games from scratch, led teams of 18-25 people to publish 3 games to Steam (in three consecutive semesters, a lot of it remote), did all the game design and programming for Heaven, Inc (https://mayymuu.itch.io/heaven-inc) a game highlighting the inequities of opportunity in interviews, and have been a Dungeon Master for 13 years. Previously the proud leader of USC's leading game design club, Open Alpha, bringing a game from conception to an open alpha release each semester, giving students hands-on experience working in a game development team. Honing my software engineering skills with the small CS club ScopeSC, and participating in makeathons, game jams, and hackathons whenever the opportunity arises. Now figuring out life. Rock climbing, designing, leading, and exploring. Cool things I believe in: ​Cultural pluralism Playcentric game design Human centered product design Polymath higher education Never splitting the party Embracing your inner geek Build awesome things Exclusive to me: Simultaneous interest in improv comedy, performing magic, and Dungeons and Dragons 3-time startup founder, award-winning game designer, 5.11 outdoor lead climber Nerdy, friendly, open Archive: SWE Intern @ Bloomberg Tech SF | Product Developer | SWE/Game Design Intern at Edwards, Nickelodeon | Open Alpha USC Founder | Computer Science & Game Design ~~~ GDC ~~~ Sign up for free playtests, future job opportunities GDC: https://tinyurl.com/charliegdc I've built and shipped games end-to-end in Unity, Unreal, Godot, multiplayer/singleplayer, 1st/3rd person/topdown, 2d/3d, to VR/PC/Mobile to 100,000s of players. ~~~ GDC ~~~ ## Work Experience ### Founding Advisor @ Open Alpha USC Jan 2021 – Present Semester 12 Check out “Neuromancer” released 12/2/2025 https://openalphausc.weebly.com/fall2025.html Semester 11 Check out "Open Your Browser", released 4/30/2025 https://open-alpha-usc.itch.io/open-your-browser Semester 10 Check out "Smooth-Talking Pickpocket", released 12/5/2024 https://open-alpha-usc.itch.io/smooth-talking-pickpocket Semester 9 Check out "Sorcerer Smackdown", released 4/25/2024 https://youtu.be/-4iWGBTVRG4 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2890550/Sorcerer_Smackdown/ Semester 8 Check out "Boo's There?", released 12/28/2023 https://youtu.be/XMqU3fGCKxE https://store.steampowered.com/app/2686930/Boos_There/ Semester 7 Check out "Bone Boy", released 4/29/2023 https://youtu.be/2mPOFQlGY0g https://store.steampowered.com/app/2372070/Bone_Boy/ Semester 6 Check out "Yōkaimaki", released 12/10/2022 https://www.youtube.com/live/suNS2u9d0II?feature=share https://store.steampowered.com/app/2207010/Ykaimaki/ Semester 5 Check out "Check It Out", released 4/29/2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNOzvEjH2qE https://store.steampowered.com/app/1928430/Check_it_Out/ Semester 4 Check out Equinox, released 12/4/2021! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_2SUCP7qfM https://store.steampowered.com/app/1778590/Equinox/ Can't claim any credit for the development of these above games, just enormous pride in the amazing self-sustaining team that Open Alpha has grown into <3 ~~MY GAMES~~ Semester 3 Check out "Sinking Inn", released 5/1/2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZGzZar0DE0 https://store.steampowered.com/app/1552460/Sinking_Inn/ Semester 2 Check out "Spooky Speakeasy", released 12/19/2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4hLCADlXZY https://store.steampowered.com/app/1440940/Spooky_Speakeasy/ Semester 1 Check out "Wishy Washy", released 5/2/2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg7KXi9QNus https://store.steampowered.com/app/1269990/Wishy_Washy/ ### President & Founder @ Open Alpha USC Jan 2019 – Jan 2021 | Greater Los Angeles Area Semesters 1-3 o·pen al·pha /ōpən alfə/ noun a cycle of testing a game in an early stage, wherein the test group is much larger than that of closed testing and typically open to anyone who is interested. Our Mission Bring a game from conception to an open-alpha release each development cycle (semester/year) Learn more at https://bit.ly/openalpha I led teams of 18-25 students to publish three games to Steam over three semesters. Check them out above. Accomplishments as president: - Brought together board of 6 passionate individuals to build, manage, and lead a thriving game design organization. - Leading design process and ideation. - Building community by planning and MCing team building activities. - Built website https://openalphausc.com - Wrote constitution & designed logo, color palette, and branding. - Fundraised, organized, and promoted first-ever "Zip Zap Zop" Lightning Game Design Challenge, distributing over $500 in Steam gift card prize money to teams of three in a lightning fast game design competition over quarantine. https://openalphausc.com/zzz, brought in industry judges from Nickelodeon & Riot Games Game credits: - Technology administration (GitHub collaboration setup, GitFlow lead, Azure DevOps ScrumMaster) for all three games under my leadership - UX design & polishing - Shop, items, in-game economy implementation - Gameplay mockup implementations - Game deployment (installers / executables) - I have run hundreds, if not thousands of playtests, with players ranging from my little sister to games academia legend Eric Zimmerman ### Product Developer / SWE / Technical Game Designer @ Venture Backed Stealth Startup Jan 2024 – Present | San Francisco, California, United States First employee at a 500 Startups // 500 Global-backed company https://500.co/ Learning a lot, building fast with some of the best in the games industry ### Close-up Magician @ The Magic Castle® Jan 2019 – Present | Los Angeles, California, United States Magician Member at the world-famous Magic Castle https://www.magiccastle.com/ Weekly performer whilst attending USC ### Teaching Assistant (Games Department) @ University of Southern California Jan 2024 – Jan 2024 | Los Angeles, California, United States Course Producer for USC Games program's most indispensable course and my favorite university class, CTIN 488: Game Design Workshop Worked under head lecturer Richard Lemarchand (Naughty Dog, Uncharted design lead) and partnered with workshop instructor Brian Upton (Sony Games, Rainbow Six design lead) to help students in the graduate and undergraduate USC Games programs design, prototype, and playtest a board game with new design constraints every week. Learning fundamental game design principles through experience; how to design rich rules, collaborate in teams, iterate on a game toward a target experience, balance mechanics, the importance of verbs and affordances, and many other critical game design skills. Very hands-on teaching with the best of the best educators and students in game design. ### Usability Lead/Game Designer (Playtesting Lead) @ USC Games Jan 2023 – Jan 2024 | Los Angeles, California, United States Lead playtesting coordinator/facilitator for team of 37 working on mobile game title "Dandelion Wine". Dandelion Wine is a slapstick puzzle game for mobile. Play as a mischievous glob of wine wreaking havoc at a cult festival. Escape from thirsty festival-goers, solve puzzles to grow bigger, and build an army of tipsy Winefolk to defeat the all-powerful Wine God! Play the beta and give feedback HERE! ~ https://testflight.apple.com/join/75k8Qa2z Shipping to App Store on iOS in late December. Worked over 8 hours a week on senior thesis project Dandelion Wine conducting usability tests, pushed for continued improvements for existing designs and fresh prototypes. Partnered with other designers, artists, and engineers to create and iterate on a variety of features ranging from player movement, abilities, puzzle systems, to particle systems. All of these features contribute to a wine blob, puzzle, and combat experience which is deep, compelling, and always feels great to play. ### Software Engineering Intern @ Bloomberg Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 | San Francisco, California, United States Built software infrastructure with cutting-edge open source and emerging technologies to equip Bloomberg clients (Bloomberg Terminal users at financial institutions all across the globe) with the tools for big data analytics. My team in SF worked on tools for clients to perform incessant enormous data operations with our datalakes with lightning speed. Bloomberg L. P. donates 85% of its profits annually to nonprofits and philanthropic endeavors. You can learn more at https://www.instagram.com/bloombergdotorg ### Lead Product Developer @ SuperHero Recycling Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | Remote (New York City, NY) Sole product designer, UX designer, and developer for iOS app gamifying self-assessment of your sustainability habits. Managed consulting experts where necessary to improve features such as user journey, color palettes, and typeface design. Rapidly prototyped UX, user flow, and user journey with tools such as Figma, XCode Storyboards, Google Forms, and Venmo. Iterated through 32 progressive versions of the app on Testflight over two-week development push to meet high standard of polish and visual design by company CEO, passing Apple app store review on first submission to publish successfully and support leading brand ethos of circularity. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/superhero-recycling/id1634162973?uo=4&at=1010lpjB&ct=tas Demo available here: https://github.com/cfireborn/recyAppDemo ### Software Engineering Intern (Game Design Tools) - Nick Games @ Nickelodeon Animation Jan 2021 – Jan 2021 | Burbank, California, United States LEARNED TONS AT MY NICKTERNSHIP! https://www.nickanimation.com/ Worked on the Platform for Interactive Experiences (PIE), in-house customization of the Unity game engine, to make the New York experience designers' lives easier on the Authoring Team for Noggin, a pre-Kindergarden educational app of books, games, and interactive stories. Winner of 2019 Family & Kids Webby "Best of the Internet" Award. Nominee and 2nd place winner for the 27th (2023) annual "Best of the Internet" General Apps and Software Webby Award in for Family & Kids Designed and implemented Haptic feature with C# in Unity for team of 10+ interactive video designers from conception to delivery, to be added to mobile episodes in Noggin, to reach 2.5 million subscribers Shadowed designers to identify pain points and brought improvements and critical crash fixes back to the team Iterated on designer UI/UX using wireframes and A/B testing to increase intuitiveness of the authoring tool Led testing new features across mobile and tablet devices, building to Android and iOS to verify and improve functionality across both platforms ### Webmaster @ Illumin Magazine Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Los Angeles, California, United States Webmaster for Illumin Magazine, USC Viterbi's student-written and student-published magazine exploring the science and technology behind everyday life since 1999 - Covering all technology needs for unique article content (animations, embedded simulations, etc) - Utilizing Avada theming and Fusion Builder plugins to create an easily maintained site for future webmasters - Maintaining website using WordPress to provide high availability + 24/7 uptime for hundreds of viewers / day from all around the world. - Writing custom PHP code to optimize site experience & load times - Did first reworking of Wordpress theme in over 10 years to modernize ### Teaching Assistant (CS Department) @ University of Southern California Jan 2020 – Jan 2021 | Los Angeles, California, United States Course Producer for CSCI 103: Introduction to Programming - Providing additional support for undergraduate students in labs and office hours - Helping teach fundamentals of C++ and common programming paradigms - Working with other TAs to create an environment conducive to learning in an online format Informally awarded "angel of the 103 piazza" by Head TA ### Software Engineering Intern @ Edwards Lifesciences Jan 2020 – Jan 2020 | Irvine, California, United States - Led development on virtual reality training project, creating a tech demo to reach ~50 decision makers to show the capabilities of VR and go on to reach 150+ trainees by the end of the year - Made crucial lighting and rendering optimizations to Virtual Reality (Oculus Quest) training project in Unity, tripling frame rate from 21 to over 72 frames per second - Performed post-mortem analysis on large software projects (~20 person) based off of PTC Integrity-collected data, presenting findings to department directors, enabling Leadership Team to make critical decisions over quality of software - Made CSS improvements to existing documents to increase readability of medical device documentation - Engineered script using Javascript interfacing with PTC Integrity’s API to automate extraction of software quality metrics, leading to 94% time-savings over existing manual method ## Education ### Bachelor of Science - BS in Computer Science and Game Design. Minors Cybersecurity, Entrepreneurship University of Southern California ### Summa Cum Laude in Valedictorian University High School ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/charlie-feuerborn - Website: https://tinyurl.com/charliegdc --- Source: https://flows.cv/charliefeuerborn JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/charliefeuerborn/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-05