EA Sports

Following my departure from my team at Xbox and my family’s subsequent move out of Washinton at the tail end of 2017, I was quickly referred to a satellite team working out of the Electronic Arts studios located in Austin, TX that was supporting development of the Madden NFL franchise. This team was seeking to bring on additional QA specialists to support the development of that year’s entry into the Madden NFL franchise, so I agreed to sign onto that team under contract as an embedded QA Analyst in order to support testing and verification operations on EA Sports Madden NFL 19.

During my time on the project, the Madden NFL satellite team in Austin was primarily focused on shipping the ‘Franchise‘ mode of that year’s Madden NFL title, as well as providing support for the main team over in Florida building the showcase ‘Longshot: Homecoming‘ story mode content. The QA team I was attached to consisted of three people, and we were tasked with conducting robust testing and validation efforts for platform compatibility, gameplay experience, asset iteration, user interface, audio, input, and various other product components comprising the completed EA Sports Madden NFL 19 experience. In addition, my QA team was brought in by the design team to assist with designing the new ‘Archetypes’ player progression system overhaul, as well as help with updating player rating attributes. Near the end of EA Sports Madden NFL 19’s development cycle, our team collaborated with the wider team on roadmap and feature planning for the next year’s Madden NFL development cycle (I.e., EA Sports Madden NFL 20).

Key success factors that informed my time with the satellite team at EA Austin routed to my ability to successfully collaborate with that many various engineers, designers, artists, producers, project managers, and game directors on a daily basis to effectively drive the testing efforts covering our team’s charter of ownership of the final EA Sports Madden NFL 19 product experience.

As is custom with many seasonal sports game franchises, I worked this position’s contract through to its completion and left the team in Austin just prior to EA Sports Madden NFL 19 hitting store shelves. My reasoning for not choosing to sign on for a new contract to support the following year’s development cycle was due to my choice to pursue a more challenging opportunity that was offered to me from Bungie back in Washington.

Portfolio Links:

• EA Sports Madden NFL 19

• EA Sports Madden NFL 20