Principal Software Engineer
About
Engineer who loves bridging the gap between design and engineering.
I'm Cameron Micka, a principal software engineer who takes pride in handing other creative people superpowers. Fifteen-plus years, a drawer full of shipped titles, and a love for simulations, renderers, gameplay and AI systems, physics, and the design tools that turn "what if" into "ship it." My work spans mixed reality at Microsoft and console game development at studios like Fun Bits Interactive and LucasArts, all rooted in a real-time interactive simulation education at DigiPen.
It started with one of the very first games submitted to the iTunes App Store — a scrappy app Microsoft liked enough to buy for the Zune HD. That got me a seat at LucasArts as a gameplay engineer on the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed series for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, where I learned that lightsabers are mostly physics problems wearing a great costume.
Next came Fun Bits Interactive and Escape Plan, a bestselling PlayStation Vita title built on a custom port of Unity. I was promoted to Technical Director and led a team of 12 engineers through Fat Princess Adventures, a cooperative online multiplayer RPG — while building a bespoke PlayStation 4 engine underneath it. In 2016 I joined Microsoft, where I've focused on mixed reality and bridging the gap between design and engineering ever since.
This site is itself a small engine: the landing page renders a 3D "time machine" of my career with WebGL2 (or WebGPU), where each planet is a place I've worked and each glowing point opens a story. I made this site agentically (aka vibe coded) to see what the latest frontier models were capable of in 3D. The planets are procedural (no pre-baked textures) and the models are generated with AI.
You can also find my game credits on MobyGames.
Experience, chapter by chapter
Marks a career highlight
2016 – Present
Microsoft
Principal Software Engineering Manager
Graphics & UI work across Teams Immersive, Mesh, MRTK, and HoloLens — shaders, rendering tooling, and developer experience for mixed reality.
2011 – 2016
Fun Bits Interactive
Technical Director
Grew from Software Engineer to Technical Director across five years — shipping Escape Plan on PS Vita/PS4 (Unity), Fat Princess Adventures on PS4 (custom C4 Engine), and VR/MR R&D in Unreal Engine 4. Leading up to 12 engineers while staying hands-on across engine, tools, and gameplay.
2009 – 2010
LucasArts Entertainment
Software Engineer
Gameplay and engine programming on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I & II (PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360) in the Ronin Engine — from an internship building data and tooling pipelines to shipping boss-battle gameplay and DLC.
2008 – 2011
Micka Studios
Founder
Self-employed indie studio shipping original iOS and Zune HD games on a from-scratch proprietary mobile engine — OpenGL ES 1.0/2.0, OpenAL, and Box2D — wearing every hat from engine to store submission.
2007
iD Tech Camps
Game Creation Extreme Instructor
Summer contract teaching "Video Game Creation Extreme" — the Torque game builder, game scripting, and an original course curriculum for middle and high school students.
2006 – 2010
DigiPen Institute of Technology
BS, Real-Time Interactive Simulation, Minor in Mathematics
Where it started — a rigorous, project-driven computer science and real-time graphics education built around shipping games every year.
1988 – 2004
Screen Actors Guild
Child Actor & Print Model
Long before writing code, worked as a child movie actor and print model — appearing as an extra in feature films, in TV commercials, and in print advertising.
Contact
I'm always happy to chat about real-time rendering, design to code, game development, career paths, or whatever else you're exploring.
