Eric Vander Wal
Developer Advocacy

Eric Vander Wal

Specializes in web, game, & blockchain development.
Work with Eric Vander Work with a Developer Advocacy

About

Eric Vander Wal is a developer advocate with over 20 years of development experience across web, game, and blockchain development. Through his work, he has honed his skills in small agile team management in the field of startups, SaaS culture, and developer relations. At Hutong Games (PlayMaker), he provided community management and social outreach via Slack, hosted forums, and YouTube. He also developed tutorials for YouTube following both the documentation and novel use of the PlayMaker system. His technical skills include Substrate, Polkadot, Solidity, C#, .Net, Rust, Unity, HTML, CSS, XML, AWS, Azure, ASP.NET, Blazor, Drupal, Headless CMS, Websockets, Rest API, Web API, and more.

Employment

4 roles
Aug 2021 - Present 4 years 9 months
Developer Relations
Nervos Network

Nervos Network is a blockchain platform for universal applications.

  • Managed and participated in developer discussion forums, troubleshot and addressed the concerns raised in these forums, and educated developers on best practices for effective integration of products.
  • Acted as an advocate for developers internally, and influenced developer product strategy by working with cross-functional teams.
Jun 2020 - Aug 2021 1 year 2 months
Lead Developer
Virtual Reality Institute of Health & Exercise

The VR Institute of Health & Exercise is an independent research and rating organization dedicated to using scientific tools to assess the impact of virtual and augmented reality on physical fitness. 

  • Led a small agile team for the creation of exercise-focused VR gaming middleware.
  • Oversaw the development of Drupal (Backdrop) CMS for a headless server, networking communications with Websockets on AWS, REST, NoSQL, cross-platform Xamarin mobile application, and Unity SDK development for VR. The tech stack focuses on C# and .Net with some PHP, HTML, and CSS for CMS.
  • Managed other developers, getting hands dirty in code, filling the gaps, overseeing the big picture while trying to prevent problems before they occur.
  • Technologies: Drupal (Backdrop) CMS, AWS, REST, NoSQL, C#, .Net, PHP, HTML, and CSS.
Feb 2017 - Jun 2020 3 years 4 months
VR Developer Consultant
Independent
  • Worked in the C# Microsoft .Net space. Clients were a mix of tech-savvy application/game developers as well as business persons who needed solutions to problems without understanding the underlying technology.
  • Worked extensively with the Unity C# SDK to integrate it with third-party tools for both opensource and as a developer consultant on business and game projects for hire. Due to the nature of development in VR and apps in general, there was a strong focus on profiling and performance, networking, UI/UX and usability, quick problem solving, documentation, and future-proofing evolving technology.
Dec 2016 - Jun 2020 3 years 6 months
Developer Advocate
Hutong Games (PlayMaker), USA

Hutong Games (PlayMaker) is a video game tools studio.

  • Provided community management and social outreach via Slack, hosted forums, and YouTube.
  • Developed tutorials for YouTube following both the documentation and novel uses of the PlayMaker system.
  • Provided feedback between the community and the core development team.
  • Created open-source projects and integrations between the PlayMaker system and Unity (game engine) core systems for the community.

Education

Sep 2011 - Jun 2016 4 years 9 months
Masters of Medicine, Andrology
Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Jan 2009 - Dec 2009 11 months
Chinese Language Studies, -
Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Sep 2004 - Jun 2009 4 years 9 months
Doctor of Chinese Medicine, -
International College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, VC, Canada