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Harry Kashouli

Experienced in Video Games for Quality Assurance/Technical Compliance/Production

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Harry Kashouli
42 years old
Driving License
Suisun City (94585) United States (California)
Contact me
Professional Status
Employed
Available
About Me
Proactive individual with a great passion for video games and ensuring quality at both first party and consumer levels. Demonstrated leadership skills throughout my career and developed technical skills on all platforms. Continually strive to learn more, and communicate that knowledge to those that it would benefit. Long term goal is to remain in the video games industry, and lead teams to growth and success.
Experiences
  • Titles: unannounced R&D projects
  • Producer for Engineering, Design, and UI teams
  • Assisted as Jira admin for the studio, and taught its usage to our teams; the studio was using Jira for the first time, for our recent projects
  • Titles: All 2K developed/published titles, unannounced R&D projects
  • Producer for the Analytics team
  • Responsible for ensuring that our five sub-teams were on target with tasks, and stakeholder expectations were set and met. Our team was split into Data Engineering, Data Science, Reporting, Mobile, and Monetization
  • My team did not use project/task tracking before I joined, so I added this, starting with Jira
  • I also voluntarily assisted other teams within 2K regarding project management, by utilising my previous experience
  • Titles: League of Legends, unannounced R&D projects
  • Responsible for ensuring that global live services for all our products were up and running, so that our players had minimal to no interruptions, aiming for 99% uptime
  • Live Producer for European/Russian/Turkish servers of League of Legends. My main role was to interact with Regional managers and our engineering teams, to ensure the correct operation of the game for our players, identifying potential issues through data trends and planned changes
  • Managed the adoption of GDPR, so that Riot was compliant with the EU’s new data privacy regulations
  • Lead incident triages, engaging the correct teams that are relevant, and updating stakeholders. As incident commander, my role was also to confirm SLAs were observed between our teams
  • Heavily engaged with our NOC (Network Operations Centre), ensuring that service metrics were captured accurately, for all teams
  • Data analyst and Jira/Confluence admin for my team, providing regular updates to the entire company. I led a new initiative to restructure our incident data capturing methods, and refine processes for all new requested changes via Live Operations
  • Focused on R&D projects, leading the efforts required to launch games (age ratings, first party submissions, etc.)
Learn more
  • Titles: South Park: The Fractured but Whole, Tetris Ultimate, Toy Soldiers: War Chest
  • Joined the team to initially assist with third-party titles. Assigned to oversee QA and feature planning, then moved on to additionally handle submissions for PS4, XB1
  • Moved on to first party production, with focus on assisting the main production team in all areas related to the game development process, primarily with our internal and external QA teams
  • Admin for Jira for the entire studio, assisting all projects with dashboard/filter creation, etc.
  • Worked on documentation for game features, and updating stakeholders at all stage gates
  • Managing the Development QA team in the studio. Ensuring that their daily tasks are correctly completed on time, and the rest of the development team is supported; also managing Ubisoft QA teams around the globe
  • Liaison for the various stage gate assessment teams: Compliance, Network, first party and Ubisoft guidelines, etc. My role is to ensure that our development team understands which guidelines they must adhere to, and offer suggestions to accomplish this on time with our project stages
  • Coordinate with team Leads to track ETAs for features to be incorporated in-game; additionally track blocking issues, finding solutions to clear these within the same day of being reported
  • Started an initiative to ensure all first party consoles were maintained correctly, per project
  • Titles: Just Dance 2014 & 2015
  • Acting QA Manager for Just Dance at Ubisoft Reflections. Main responsibilities of my studio started for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms, including SmartGlass integration; shifted for the next-gen Xbox One and PS4. Partially responsible for all remaining platforms for our title (PS3, Wii & Wii U), working with other studios
  • Responsible for the Development test team at Ubisoft Reflections: people management, career growth, improving testing conditions & standards, quarterly & annual reviews
  • Utilised agile methodologies to improve product testing & team communications. Upon my arrival on the project, there was a transition from waterfall to agile (initially within QA) which has now gone into full effect for our entire project, worldwide
  • The project utilised test teams in external locations (Romania, India), and daily/weekly meetings are held over Lync to ensure that Functional and Compliance checks are held to the highest standards
  • Contributed to enhancing the teams knowledge database by bringing in years of prior QA leadership & testing experience
  • Admin for Jira for our studio; responsible for creating/updating the various team/discipline dashboards
  • Heavily worked with my Production/Development teams daily to ensure that testing is held to their expectations at a minimum, and that reporting served them well within the project's lifecycle
  • Worked with the Build team to ensure that all builds were created within Compliance standards, to avoid issues appearing late in development
  • Ensured that my team and I were monitoring code check-ins in Perforce, and took correcting actions
  • Documentation was created to assist with the new platforms, specifically Xbox One. This was aimed for both QA and Developers
  • Titles: Dead Space 2 & 3
  • Started the use of Agile methodologies in my teams, to improve results and communications; specifically Scrum
  • Responsible for organising compliance testing on all platforms; knowledgeable in the respective development hardware/software; responsible for identifying critical areas where issues are most likely to occur, and shifting testing resources to account for this
  • Actively kept up to date regarding all compliance areas (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and PC)
  • Assisted with admin duties for DevTest/DevTrack in EARS QA Compliance (project tracking and lifecycle management tools); updated test cases for all platforms and kept them up to date
  • Assisted with the training of our new outsourced test teams (Globant – Argentina, EA – Romania & USA), and constantly updated them with first party developments; responsible for training them so that all EA QA departments could use them successfully
  • Responsible for ensuring that products were checked for legal requirements (ESRB, PEGI, etc) and packaging compliance assets
  • Responsible for completing all the guideline documentation for submission to EA Certification
  • Received a global EA award for Being Accountable
  • Moved to the USA to assist with the training of our newly formed North American team
  • Responsible for carrying out compliance tests on the Xbox 360 platform; knowledgeable in the respective development hardware/software; updated compliance glossaries and performed guideline reviews on titles
  • Actively kept up to date regarding all compliance areas (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and PC)
  • Administered DevTest/DevTrack in NCG (project tracking and lifecycle management tools); updated test cases for the Microsoft platform and kept them up to date
  • Communicated heavily with development studios, ensuring that they were aware of the changes to the department and how it affected them
  • Completely rearranged how the network was set up for our online testing, and received an award for the work done
  • Responsible for carrying out compliance tests on Sony platforms, mainly PS3 and PSP; knowledgeable in the respective development hardware/software; updated compliance glossaries and performed guideline reviews on titles
  • Actively kept up to date regarding all compliance areas (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft and PC), and assisted the other compliance teams whenever possible; specifically trained Nintendo staff on use of their development hardware and software tools
  • Administered DevTest/DevTrack in ECG (project tracking and lifecycle management tools); created test cases for Sony platforms and kept them up to date
  • Interviewed and trained testers that joined ECG during the peak period (Summer 2007); part of the recruitment team that advertises positions for ECG
  • Created and led a group within ECG that was in charge of all development software/hardware updates; actively maintained a SharePoint site that was continually updated; created documentation for all platforms
  • Worked heavily with the newly formed LT team in Madrid; assisted them with setting up all their consoles for both offline and online testing, and ensured that their Compliance team was trained for all requirements that differ between languages
  • Responsible for managing and carrying out ECG Tester training within the division, to ensure quality is maintained for submission of software titles to first party and their public release
  • Maintained an active role in training both new and current Testers, which has been vital in keeping high quality testing procedures
  • Assisted the Department in IT situations: Personally took responsibility for ensuring that computers have always been updated and serviced when needed; recommended new hardware needed for testing; taught Testers the proper use of computers for maximum testing efficiency
  • Continually kept up to date regarding all Microsoft related platforms (PC, Xbox, Xbox 360): Learned to effectively use the appropriate XDKs; constantly kept updated regarding console TCRs, required steps for submitting titles to first party and new developments with Windows Vista and the upcoming changes to cross-platform gaming
  • Additionally self-taught the use of SDKs for Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii
  • Responsible for discovering and reporting issues in software titles, to ensure quality is maintained for public release
  • Demonstrated teamwork and leadership abilities, which have been crucial to showing good reproduction steps for issues
  • Learned to effectively use the DevTrack project tracking tool
  • Managed a team of four staff across three different bars, allocating tasks and serving customers
  • Demonstrated excellent team management and leadership skills, ensuring the utmost quality of service was provided
  • Frequently selected for important business functions
  • Implemented the migration of all data to a new software and hardware package
  • Successfully learned and subsequently taught hotel staff usage of the new "Protel" software, working within strict time constraints
  • Made responsible for a smooth and seamless transition during the busiest part of the tourist season
  • Assisted with the ISO 9001:2000 certification of the company
  • Responsible for collecting data regarding electricity consumption addresses in the District of Paphos
  • Developed people skills by gathering data during meetings with members of the local councils
  • Involved in data processing within the accounts department
  • Responsible for collecting data regarding electricity consumption addresses in the District of Paphos
  • Developed people skills by gathering data during meetings with members of the local councils
  • Involved in data processing within the accounts department
  • Responsible for platoons at three battalions
  • In charge of military education throughout two years, including the training of new recruits
  • Demonstrated effective leadership over others whilst simultaneously obeying commands from higher ranks
Education

BSc (Hons)

Royal Holloway, University of London

September 2001 to July 2005
Physics
Dissertation in Kaluza-Klein theory
Skills

Technical Compliance

  • Xbox One, Xbox 360 development kits / XDK
  • PS4, PS3, PS2, Vita and PSP development kits and their relevant SDK tools
  • Nintendo Wii U/Wii devkits/SDKs
  • PC (Games for Windows, Facebook)
  • Android, iOS guideline experience

QA Tools

  • TechExcel DevTest / DevTrack
  • Bugzilla
  • Canonical (Ubuntu) Launchpad
  • Mantis
  • Atlassian Jira/Confluence
  • Perforce

Computer skills

  • Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, Outlook)
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • C++ / Java basic skills
  • Basic 3D software skills (Maya, Blender, XSI)
  • Proficient in building computers and administering them
  • Skilled in using Windows, Linux and OS X

Languages

  • English (fluent)
  • Greek (fluent)
Interests

Other

  • Technical Compliance
  • Technology
  • Video Games
  • Writing (Currently working on a fantasy novel)
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