Max Schafer - Software Engineer & Game Developer

Experience

Professional experience across SaaS, backend systems, game development, and education-driven product work.

Tools Programmer

Larian Studios

May 2025 - Current

Develop tools and applications for a proprietary in-house game engine and editor, supporting daily workflows of designers, artists, and engineers.
Design and implement WPF-based interfaces for interacting with complex systems and data.
Build performance-critical features in C++ and C# with real-time responsiveness.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to support existing tools and develop new solutions tailored to their workflows.

Software Developer .NET

Catalis

May 2024 - May 2025

Developed and maintained proprietary payment software as a service used by government clients.
Delivered full-stack work across a .NET backend and Angular frontend for secure, scalable product features.
Work with AWS and Azure cloud services to manage deployments, storage, and infrastructure.
Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform to provision and manage cloud resources.
Utilize SQL for database management and optimization.
Regularly use Jira to track development progress, manage sprints, and collaborate across teams.

Programming Intern (Services)

Inflexion Games

May 2023 - Dec 2023

Supported cloud-hosted game live services using Golang, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, and gRPC.
Integrated Epic Online Services into Unreal Engine (C++) for multiplayer functionality.
Supported internal tools to automate QA and server provisioning workflows.

Game Programmer

MacEwan University (Life on the Edge Team)

Dec 2022 - Jun 2025

Developed a custom analytics tool connecting Unity Analytics to Snowflake data warehouse to capture and analyze player data for use in a research study.
Collaborated with designers on implementing the game's UI/UX.
Integrated the Steamworks API to enable leaderboards, achievements, and other community features.
Created a custom automated build tool in bash to automate building the game for PC and Mac and uploading to Steam.

Software Engineer Intern

TD Bank

May 2022 - Aug 2022

Supported backend trading workflows by helping maintain an Orders REST API in Node.js.
Built automation and debugging support with JavaScript, SQL, and Splunk.

Application Developer

Natl CJCR Sp Gp IT Service Management Centre

May 2020 - Sep 2020, May 2021 - Sep 2021

Delivered application updates and coordinated implementation details across project and DevOps stakeholders.
Built features and bug fixes with an emphasis on testability and clear implementation options.
Supported documentation and CI-friendly delivery practices across review cycles.

Unit Public Affairs Representative

Canadian Cadets and Junior Canadian Rangers Support Group National HQ

Feb 2021 - May 2021

Supported brand presence and communications across social channels and media assets.
Produced visual content and media support for public-facing communications.

Education

Academic work focused on computer science, technical foundations, and digital experience design.

Computer Science

MacEwan University

2021 - 2024

Digital Experience Design minorHonors

Computer Engineering Technology

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology

2018 - 2020

Honors

Projects

Selected personal and professional projects across games, apps, graphics, and AI.

AI Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Assistant

Website

Fully dockerized Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system for Godot Engine documentation, featuring an offline indexing pipeline, Qdrant vector database, support for OpenAI APIs and local LLM inference (Ollama), and monitoring via a Grafana dashboard.