An update - Leaving Livelike
- 3 mins
Showcase
After 3 short years at Livelike, and a whirlwind of exciting projects, I am moving on now. Livelike allowed me the freedom to explore my interests while also teaching me how efficient systems that deliver are setup amidst the chaos. I am proud to have been part of the team that worked with FIFA World Cup VR coverage with multiple broadcasters by building over 30 apps simultaneously. I got to experience VR on the frontlines and ride the wave of desire for this technology. I also experienced intense sporting events up close, and got the best seats, albeit virtual ones.
The Team in 2017
It was a joy watching the team grow from a motley crew of a few trying to deliver at 4 a.m to a well-oiled machine that knows what is expected and how to deliver. I switched multiple teams and even led one for a short while. I made friends and I am thankful for this time at Livelike.
The Team in 2018
Mini Livelike Resume
In somewhat chronological order:
- Created an android SDK out of a Unity VR project, got it to launch, and trimmed the size of the project. This never got good enough, given the structure of the project unfortunately.
- Ported the unity project into a Xamarin SDK, trimmed size down further with dynamic scene loading.
- Built a show-case for Sony products in VR.
- Ported Redux and Redux-Observable to C# Unity, built on top of UniRx. Proceeded to switch major chunks of the project to Redux based state management.
- Helped and watched over the DI-fication of the project, and eventual cleanup.
- Setup a rudimentary system for static assets to be switched quickly during the build to help with multiple clients.
- Unity side of the Mosaic system for watching multiple videos at the same time.
- Inherited and finished up the Highlight Center in the Unity application.
- Setup a React renderer for VR, allowing for the possible creation of VR applications with React. Used Spidermonkey for the JS engine, and got it to the POC stage.
The VR Showcase
- Worked on the initial pilot of the Livelike Engagement SDK built entirely in React Native for both Android and iOS, making the switch to the Mobile team in the process.
- Switched to Android native SDK team, helping with architecture and initial release.
- Moved to the Producer frontend team, started with helping improve the widget creation section, switching completely to using React hooks and functional components only.
- Helped switch the entire Producer Dashboard architecture to use React hooks and functional components.
- Setup the chat moderation section for the Producer Dashboard.
The Mobile SDK Showcase
Stats
- 3 years, 4 months at Livelike
- 8 offices worked at (3 at JMD, 2 at Spaze, 1 at GoodEarth, 2 at CyberPark)
- 10 desk switches
- 3 CEOs
- 6 managers
- 1 wedding
- 377 pull requests on the Unity codebase, 140 on the Producer Dashboard, 13 on the Android Native SDK
- Over 50 releases spread across Unity, VR, React Native, Android, and React.
Why am I leaving?
Got an opportunity to move away from app-related things back to a game-dev adjacent field and also to work with game-dev industry veterans. I was also getting quite comfortable at Livelike (and it is a very comfortable workplace), so much so that I stopped growing and learning new things. The team has also reached a point where I feel comfortable exiting, the bus factor is not one anymore.
ONWARDS!
Sandeep Nambiar
Measuring the world