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About Me

I'm a software engineer specialized in full-stack development, game design, and video game development, who can build apps and video games from the ground up. I've worked at startups as well as CAC40 companies, so I'm used to wearing many hats. I am a very product focussed developer who prioritizes user feedback first and foremost. I'm generally very flexible when investigating new roles.

Lately, I've been building a business to make real-time networked video games, but I'm still doing full-stack development for a living.

I started coding in 2001 at the age of 13. I was mainly doing web development at the time. I started studying programming in school in 2009 where I gained broader skills like system, network and AI programming using c, c++, java. I became a graduate software engineer in 2014.

I have always lived with video games. When teachers asked us what we wanted to do with our lives, at the age where the answers were astronaut, firefighter or princess, mine was being a video game maker. Today I don’t play much because when I do, it quickly gives me ideas that I look forward to implement in my own projects. And I feel that programming itself is like the best game ever.

In fact, my desire for crafting things is not tied to video games, I like to build things in general, which is why I’m not only specialized in game development. During my career, I've tried to acquire all the skills to build and publish projects on my own. This is why I'm familiar with high and low-level programming languages, but I've also developed skills in marketing / growth hacking, data analysis, UI / UX, and art. Of course, I'm not as good at these as I am at software engineering, but I know enough to do some projects on my own or to manage people to do it.

Career

I studied IT at Epitech Paris and also one year in southern California at California State University-San Marcos. In the later, I studied mostly computer science and artificial intelligence.

During my career, I've worked on several projects as a founder, associate or employee of companies.

The most notable projects I've worked on, in chronological order are the following:

  • At Atos: I worked on a platform dedicated to the exploitation of big data.
  • At Intersec: A similar project, but this time for large French telecommunications companies.
  • Mindup (co-founder): A social network that allows you to send messages to people around you. We had around 10,000 users, which was good for a first entrepreneurial experience, but far from the goal of making it a sustainable project.
  • CodeTown (founder): An interactive online platform that offers coding courses in different programming languages. Unfortunately, it failed early.
  • Chatel Properties (associate): A real estate company specialized in high-quality goods. It worked and it is still working, but I didn't want to build my career in real estate, so I left the company to take up other challenges.
  • ForestAdmin: A SaaS that plugs into your database to generate a full-featured admin panel. I worked there as a full-stack engineer for about two years. I touched on everything. This is where I've started to learn how to quickly scale a product with a very high growth rate. The conditions were perfect to live a very nice adventure: the team was good and we raised 3M$ and 7M$. ForestAdmin started out as part of eFounder, a start-up studio that has created many successful companies such as Mailjet, Spendesk, Front, Slite, Aircall and more. I have worked both as an employee of eFounder and ForestAdmin and knowing this ecosystem made my skills step up a lot.
  • BigSeed Studio (founder): I am now working in my own business on my own indie video game. The idea is to alternate between the development of my game and periods of consulting / freelance.

As a Video Game Engineer

My tastes

My favorite game design elements are those around intrinsic motivation, emergent gameplay, and procedural generation.

In games like Minecraft, Don’t Starve, Stardew Valley, you don’t necessarily have clear goals, you have to find your own. I find this motivation powerful and like the sensation of freedom.

In games like Hitman or Breath Of The Wild, you do have clear goals but you have a variety of ways to achieve it. This triggers the problem-solving part of the brain in a very creative forms.

With procedurally generated worlds like in Minecraft, even the developers of the game can be amazed and spend hours going in adventure to discover their own creations.

Finally, I enjoy sharing these experiences with my friends or find new ones, this is why I tend to focus on building networked games.

Skills

I've used both Unity and custom-tailored C and C++ game engines, depending on the project.

I appreciate the architecture that emerges from languages with strong rules like Rust and Haskell. The overload of time to develop a project with these may not be worth it for a small project, but it's a huge payoff, in the long run, if you consider the number of bugs and runtime errors they remove. I used Rust for about a year on a side project and would be very willing to use it more.

My skills:

  • Procedural generation
  • Network (including for real-time FPS)
  • UI: I played with a wide variety of UI, from web to native ones like Qt with C++, through Unity and some custom ones. I consider myself productive in this area.
  • Game engine architecture
  • Gameplay programming
  • Gfx/shader, I can implement Phong lighting, play with PBR, and do some effects with OpenGL, but I’m not a wizard of AAA games rendering pipeline. I’m not scared to work on this, but I would be slower than someone specialized.

As a Full Stack Engineer / Architect

Skills

  • Programming language:
    • JavaScript (browser & nodejs)
    • TypeScript
    • Rust
    • Python
    • Haskell (only a few weeks of real-world practice, but I am very willing to improve this skill)
  • Database:
    • Postgresql
    • Mysql
    • Mongodb
    • Redis
  • ORM/ODM:
    • SequelizeJs
    • TypeORM
    • Mongoose
  • Frontend framework/library:
    • React
    • EmberJs
    • Next.js
    • GatsbyJs
  • Web api:
    • REST
    • GraphQL
  • PaaS/IaaS:
    • AWS
    • Heroku
    • Microsoft Azure
  • Monitoring service:
    • Datadog
    • Elastic Stack
  • CI/CD:
    • Travis
    • Github
    • Gitlab
  • Virtualization & orchestration:
    • Docker
    • Kubernetes

I am very interested in event sourcing technology like Kafka. I've never used it in production, but I'm up for the challenge.

I'm a good fit if:

  • you want to architect a new system.
  • you want some manpower for an existing project.
  • you want to scale an existing system.
  • you want to establish good coding practices.
  • you need to set up continuous integration and continuous delivery.
  • you want to implement agile processes for a project.

Other Skills

  • Haskell:

    I've used Haskell for a few weeks. I've read Get Programming with Haskell and I'm now reading Haskell in Depth.

    I see how Haskell robustness (strong static typing, purity, and immutability) can increase productivity in the long run, therefore I would be interested to use it on a freelance project.

Recommendations

Arnaud worked at Forest Admin for nearly 2 years and the whole technical team is sad to lose him. Arnaud has brought us a lot both technically and humanely. Passionate about code and avid learner, he has strongly contributed to improving our codebase while delivering quality features in a short time. Arnaud is also a person you can count on when it comes to passing on knowledge and helping his team members.

Arnaud Besnier, CTO @ Forest Admin

Source: LinkedIn

Arnaud spent about 6 months with us, and he will be missed. He is a passionate, result-oriented software engineer with the drive of a reckless entrepreneur. Both opinionated and constructive, Arnaud also has a very good sense of humor that comes with consistently high spirits, and I have absolutely no doubt he will succeed in turning his projects into successful products & services.

Romain Gauthier, Data Scientist @ Intersec

Source: LinkedIn

Technical Books I Like

Latest Novel Readings

Some Video Games I Like

  • All Zelda games but especially Breath of the Wild
  • Minecraft
  • All Half-Life games and many of their mods.
  • Both The Last of Us games
  • All the Uncharted games
  • Hitman

In My Spare Time

  • FPV drone
  • Running
  • Travel (USA, Canada, India, UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Morocco)