Seph Newman Seph Newman
(918) 408-5178
sephnewman.com
seph.newman@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/sephnewman
Work Experience
thatgamecompany Remote
Senior Backend Engineer Sky Gameplay Backend Team (Mar 2026 - Present)
  • Developed and maintained backend microservices written in Go, Erlang, and Elixir to power Sky: Children of the Light, a social MMO adventure game
  • Brought process and engineering rigor to a rapidly changing team inheriting a vast codebase serving tens of thousands of concurrent players
Stoic Remote
Lead Backend Engineer Backend Team (Dec 2022 - Mar 2026)
Senior Backend Engineer II Backend Team (Oct 2021 - Nov 2022)
Senior Backend Engineer I Backend Team (Oct 2020 - Sep 2021)
  • Established the foundational Azure infrastructure for Towerborne, an Xbox-published MMO-Lite action RPG developed in Unreal Engine 5
  • Created C# microservices for critical game features including auth, inventory, and matchmaking
  • Implemented secure server-authoritative interaction patterns between Unreal game components and the backend
  • Created internal web-based tools for audiences including game designers, customer support, and live ops
  • Set up the backend interview loop and hired four additional engineers, managing and mentoring each as a direct report
  • Coordinated with production to balance feature development with foundational tech work
  • Built and ran Locust load tests simulating real game client traffic to validate 100,000 concurrent players ahead of early access launch
  • Established an on-call rotation including daytime responsibilities and after-hours escalation process
  • Led the technical effort to run live service code directly from the game client, enabling offline play
Twitch Seattle, WA
Software Engineer III [L6] Bits Team (May 2019 - Oct 2020)
Software Engineer II [L5] Bits Team (May 2016 - Apr 2019)
Software Engineer I [L4] Bits Team (Dec 2015 - Apr 2016)
  • Worked full-stack to design, build, and launch the initial Twitch Bits virtual currency product in June 2016
  • Designed, developed, and maintained multiple Go and Java microservices that power the Twitch Bits product
  • Conducted over 100 technical interviews leading to multiple engineering hires for the commerce organization
  • Designed and implemented a reusable leaderboard microservice supporting ranked data operations for multiple Twitch features including Bits
  • Built product key infrastructure supporting secure generation, distribution, and redemption workflows for various Twitch products including Bits
Amazon Seattle, WA
Software Engineer I [L4] Digital Software and Video Games Team (Feb 2014 - Dec 2015)
  • Developed and maintained the team's Java microservices used to fulfill digital software and video game orders
  • Worked on the integration of digital games and software with Amazon-wide inventory management systems
  • Led a small team to design and implement support for free trials in the software subscriptions platform
  • Led a redesign of the software subscriptions library page to support multi-quantity license management
Software Engineer Intern Digital Software and Video Games Team (Summer 2013)
  • Designed, implemented, and launched a project that added Metacritic review scores to Amazon game pages
Software Engineer Intern Delivery Experience Team (Summer 2012)
  • Designed and implemented a general-purpose rules engine for configuring holiday availability messaging
University of Oklahoma Norman, OK
Research Assistant / Developer MYLEOnet Project (Fall 2010 - Fall 2013)
  • Modernized legacy data entry software used by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation into an ASP.NET web application
Technical Skills
Languages
Go C# Java Python Erlang Elixir Ruby C++ Lua Perl C Scheme ACL2
Web Technologies
HTML CSS JavaScript TypeScript React JSP jQuery Bootstrap JSON Ember ASP.NET Rails Spring Mason
Cloud & DevOps
AWS Azure Terraform Docker Kubernetes Grafana Locust Azure DevOps TeamCity Jenkins
Datastores
SQL AWS DynamoDB Azure Cosmos DB Redis Elasticsearch
Game Development
PlayFab Unreal Unity XNA
Education
University of Oklahoma
Master of Computer Science (3.91 GPA)
Spring 2013 - Fall 2013
University of Oklahoma
Bachelor of Computer Science (3.93 GPA)
Fall 2009 - Fall 2012
With Mathematics Minor
With Honors (Summa cum Laude)
Other Experience