Anything is Possible with Todd Bello!

A Career in Making Tools and Fun!

About

For the past 8 years Todd Bello has been supporting game developers with tools and systems for creating an optimal player experience (especially/most recently in Unreal Engine 5 Plugins).

The following documents his journey and the tools he used along the way.

Professional Software Engineering Experience

WB San Diego April 2023 - April 2025

I had experience with large scalable backend systems at Microsoft and WB needed an engineer with my skills.

I helped prototype player inventory systems that were integrated with WB’s proprietary backend system Hydra which used [AWS]](https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/wb-games-new-york-case-study/)

I got to work on Multiversus!

Tools Used

C++ (Unreal Engine), Node.js, AWS

PlayFab May 2018 - February 2023

I originally was hired at Xbox to work on low level C++ telemetry systems.

I was convinced that being close to data collection would put me at the heart of AI for games when “the next big thing hit”

Day 1 of the new job, my manager comes in and asks:

"Do you know ActionScript and PHP?"

I honestly respond, "Oh yeah a [bunch from school](#rit-september-2009---february-2013) and my first big student project, why?"

"Well you are probably going to be the resident expert in those languages because we are merging with the [PlayFab](https://playfab.com/) Team!"

I worked with the PlayFab Client SDK team through the pandemic and helped support its regular 2 week release cadence across multiple platforms like Unity, Unreal, npm, nuget, pypi, etc.

Ensured Azure PlayFab was ready for the Unreal Engine 5 release.

Helped with the release of the Xbox Series X, assuring PlayFab’s continued compatibility.

Regularly worked with external game developers to improve our client side SDKs.

Created PlayFab’s Python SDK and helped eventually move it to community support as well.

Credited in Playtesters Friends & Family on Psychonauts 2 shout out to Becca for the once in a life time opportunity!

Migrated PlayFab’s Jenkins based system to Azure DevOps pipelines

Expereinced regular On Call schedules for PlayFab Party

Tools Used:

Tools and Platforms I used at PlayFab

GitHub, Node.js, C++ (Unreal Engine), C# (Unity), PHP, ActionScript, Python, Azure

Artificial Ink & Intelligence March 2017 - April 2018

I tried to get closer to AI by side stepping to a new team.

I now handled data pipelines for telemetry. I worked with the Ink Intelligence engineers to help track how Microsoft’s handwriting recognition sdk was being used in real time.

Some more AI experience details

Tools Used:

C++ for Windows OS telemetry, PowerBI for creating live dashboards

3d Bing Maps June 2013 - March 2017

My first job out of college was to help Bing Maps get their 3d map into Windows 8.1.

I helped with the Map Control API https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/bingmaps/sdk-native/map-control-api/

Specifically I got to work on the XAML UI Tool bar and UX touch controls for tablets and Windows Phones.

I exposed the work I did there through the API above in various forms of MapScene and MapCamera api’s.

On a Windows PC (ever since Windows 8.1 so it should be on 10 and 11): If you go to C:\Windows\System32\ you’ll see a BingMaps.dll file there. I was able to help build that file!

Tools Used:

C#, C++, Visual Studio, Windows Performance Analyzer, Git

Academic & Intern Experience

North Seattle College March 2015 - December 2016

I taught Mobile Application Development at North Seattle College.

I split my class into two 10-week sessions:

A lecture/project based class where I would guide the students along the Android SDK and allow them to explore their own way around Google’s Android sdk in pairs of 2 by making open ended project prototypes for them to eventually put on the Play Store and their resume if they desired to work on it after the class completed. With the second session, the students had three Android Application group projects to add to their resume.
A real world project that had an external customer with a problem to solve. I would guide the students through a 10-week prototype of an android application to solve that problem. From creating a design doc (if none was present from the customer) and splitting up the client/server responsibilites among the students.

Tools Used:

Android Studio, Java

LeapFrog Intern June 2012 - August 2012

For my RIT required Co Op, I obtained real world experience as a Software Engineer at LeapFrog where I got to work in Java, utilize Eclipse’s Rich Client Platform to help create tools for toy development.

Tools Used:

Java, Eclipse RCP

RIT September 2009 - February 2013

Full Undergrad Education Details

During my time at RIT I helped build a Clothing Retail Store Simulator called StoreWorld which was a replacement for the Saunders College of Business for their COBOL business simulator for one of the intro to business classes. I worked on the first iteration of StoreWorld’s backend using phpmyadmin and ActionScript to make a backend with front end integration.