New Hires in Social Gaming: 6waves, Cie Studios, CrowdStar, & More

Like last week, the sea of new hires within the social gaming space continues with a significant number of social developers bringing on new team members, according to data from LinkedIn and other sources. The biggest hires, however, came from Loot Drop and 6waves in the forms of former Playdom program manager, Karen Clark, who joins the former as their new director of studio operations, and former Microsoft Game Studios lead producer, Dan Laughlin, who joins the latter as their new director of business development.

As always, if your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email editor (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get it into this or next week’s post. Also, please note that the information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn, and is only as current as people’s profiles.

Looking for new opportunities? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Here’s this week’s full list:

6waves

• Dan Laughlin, Director of Business Development — As noted already, Dan Laughlin joins 6waves. Before this, he was a lead producer at Microsoft Game Studios.
• Bradley Rose, Community Manager Intern — Also joining 6waves this week: Rose was previously a logistics team member for Target.

Cie Studios

• Jannay Schroeder, Senior Project Manager — Now at Cie Studios, Schroeder was most recently a senior project manager at Altametrics.

CrowdStar

• Dhaval Shah, Software Developer — Joining CrowdStar this week, Shah was formerly an iPhone game programmer at Tornado Studios.
• Lisa Zhu, Product Manager — Also joining CrowdStar, Zhu was previously an assistant producer at Electronic Arts.

GSN

• Colleen Gregus, Digital/TV Sales Associate — In an internal shift at GSN, Gregus changes from her prior role as an ad sales assistant.
• Katie Sullivan, Account Manager (The Weather Channel) — Now joining the GSN team, Sullivan was an account executive at Fuse Networks, LLC.

Happy Elements

• Vitor Luz, Press Officer for Brazil — Happy Elements makes a single hire this week. Luz was previously a press officer at XV Encontro Regional dos Estudantes de Administrção – EREAD.

Kabam

• Becca Wood, Player Experience Representative — Now at Kabam, Wood was an English and math instructor at Kumon.
• Logan Dwight, Interactive Designer — Also joining Kabam, Dwight was previously a media artist at Egan Media Productions.

KlickNation

• Dwight House, Software Engineer — KlickNation shows activity this week. House was previously an interactive UI researcher at Sierra Nevada Corporation.
• Adam Lum, Software Engineer — Also joining KlickNation, Lum was a web developer for California Parks and Recreation.

Loot Drop

• Karen Clark, Director of Studio Operations — As noted prior, Karen Clark joins Loot Drop this week. Before this, she was a program manager for Playdom.
• Franz Lanzinger, Distinguished Engineer — Now at Loot Drop, Lanzinger was previously president of Actual Entertainment.
• Sveta Trushchenkova, UI Designer — Trushchenkova was most recently a lead artist at Storm8.
• Patrick Mathews, Senior Artist — Mathews was formerly a lead artist at Metamoki.

Playfish

• Lauren Mann, Game Artists — Joining Playfish, Mann was previously an illustrator at Mind Candy.
• Marc Andreu Fernandez, Software Engineer — Now at Playfish, Fernandez’s previous position is unknown.
• Carol Braves, Office Manager — Braves was previously the administrative director at Architectural Foundation of San Francisco.

PopCap Games

• Robin Yang, Associate Producer — There is a single hire this week at PopCap Games. Yang was previously a producer at Candystand.com.

Nordeus

• Marko Milenkovic, Software Development Engineer — In an internal change at Nordeus, Milenkovic shifts roles from his prior position as an intern.

Zynga

• Will Lytle, Senior Community Manager, International — Joining Zynga, Lytle was previously the marketing director for YouWin.
• Huan Zheng, Senior System Engineer — Now at Zynga, Zheng was a student at the University of Electronic Science and Technology, but is also a senior system engineer at Baidu.
• Krunal Soni, Senior Software Engineer — Soni was formerly a technical staff member at NetApp.
• Robin DelMonte, Office Manager — DelMonte was most recently an executive assistant at United Space Alliance.
• Andrew Simmons, QA Analyst — A part of Zynga now, Simmons was previously a QA/functionality tester at Sega of America.
• Michelle Ewing-Juarbe, Artist — Ewing-Juarbe was a 3D artist at Paradigm Entertainment.
• Jason Reyero, UI Designer — Reyero was a web designer for Trion World Network.
• Anant Chaudhary, Software Engineer — Joining Zynga, Chaudhary was previously a student  at the University of California, Davis, but is also currently a member of technical staff at Network Appliance, and MTS at NetApp.