Interest Areas
๐ฅ Devrel
๐ฎ GameDev
โค Community
โ R&D
Skills
๐จโ๐ป Engineering
๐จโ๐ซ Education
๐ค Com Building
๐ Marketing
๐ท Video Production
โ Interviewing
Liam Sorta
โญ MLH Top 50 โ ๐ Alexa Champion โ ๐ Founder of things
Bio
Hey! I'm a developer of many things, be that apps, communities, content, or products. My skills span across various development ecosystems/engines, project management, and marketing.
Iโve been fortunate enough to work with a bunch of awesomely talented people across tech/games on projects to work directly on products reaching millions of people; itโs absolutely incredible and terrifying.
Generally, though, I'm just a big nerd that likes making things.
At a past company, an analogy our director told us stuck with me:
Why can the Ritz charge twice as much as the Hilton? Delight. Disappointed because you canโt drink by the pool? There will be a full bucket of drinks in your room the next day"
Delight is an incredible superpower that makes a game/product go from good to โCHECK THIS OUTโ.
๐พ Download Resumรฉ
(sorry! not sharing this atm ๐)
Previously At
Get in Touch
Things I Do
๐ฅ Developer Relations
As a developer, educator, and community builder, Developer Relations holds a close space in my heart.
Whether 1:1/1:many, every developer you encounter poses an opportunity to learn and improve your product, potentially impacting millions of other people!
So cool.
โค๏ธ Community Building
Peer learning is a powerful force multiplier for any skill; by creating communities, you indirectly create new relationships, improve products, and advance accessibility.
Having grown communities at a personal + corporate level, I have seen many of these benefits first-hand over the years.
Fancy Information
Here is some fancy information from various projects Iโve worked on/started.
๐ Alexa
Towards the end of my time at University, I began working on a few small projects for Amazon's then-new voice assistant, Alexa. I became increasingly invested in the ecosystem, quickly rising to a leading voice ๐ฅ in the industry.
- Founded my first company while at University developing Alexa apps
- Over 1,000,000 users across 30 apps
- 6 figures in revenue
- 3 direct reports (2x engineers, 1x content developer)
- Approached by Amazon to become a managed developer
- Approached by Amazon to help write their AWS Alexa exam as a Subject Matter Expert
- Interviewd by Amazon on running a successful alexa agency
- Later joined Amazon, sold the company to avoid conflict of interest
- Created demo using Alexa in VR. Demo shown at talks by Amazon around the world.
๐ฅ Developer Relations
As a developer, educator, and community builder, Developer Relations holds a close space to my heart. There's a certain kind of โจmagic in supporting creators, be that at a 1:1 or 1:many scale.
Outside of just personal projects, there are some projects I've worked on at various companies that I have LOVED being a part of.
๐ฃ Talks
๐จโ๐ป Delivered live talks to thousands of developers
๐ฐ Deck development for major external stakeholder events
๐บ 10 countries down so far
๐บ Open to IC
โค๏ธ Unity Community
Having run my own community, GameDevNetwork, for a little over a year prior to joining Unity, I was able to apply many of the skills I had learnt to an ambitious project proposal.
This gave me a super unique/niche skillset as a techy game dev community manager, which I was able to make use of during my time at Unity to help jump through the internal pitching of a Discord community + leaping through the PR/Legal review jumping hoops.
As of now, the Unity Discord Community has now grown to over 58,000 unique members, even surpassing my own community's member count!
Content Creation - Videos
๐ฎ GameDevNetwork
Figures last updated on 07/05/2021
- Founded an online community for Game Developers to support skill/career growth
- Grew to 30,000 members
- 3,000,000 messages sent
- Organised 13 game jams, 305 unique games submitted - teams of up to 4
- Custom tooling for creating a better user onboarding experience to overcome platform limitations.
- Sponsorship liason
๐ Come check us out for yourself!
๐ป HackTheMidlands
Figures last updated 07/05/2021
- Attended my first hackathon, met my co-founder, decided we enjoyed the event and wanted to run our own as many hackathons did not allow under 18s (logistical, child safety, sponsorship obstacles)
- Sponsor-funded to ensure free attendance for all to maximise accessibility
- Year 1: 150 attendees
- Years 2-4: 300 attendees (Capped due to venue size)
- Year 5: 500 attendees (Digital event due to pandemic, retained high delight scores)
- Over ยฃ100k secured in sponsorships
- Grew team from 2 to 13
Other Cool Stuff I've Done
I was recognised as one of the first 10 European Amazon Alexa champions in light of my contributions to the voice industry/R&D with Alexa.
See ๐ This Section for more information.
Supported Amazon with the creation of their 11th AWS Exam on Alexa by writing/reviewing exam questions.
I even got this sweet "Subject Matter Expert" hoodie so I an feel like a proud nerd in public
Not much else to add here, but it cost me ยฃ40,000, so I'll be damned if I don't include it here.
In 2020 I made Major League Hacking's first Top 50 list. MLH is a global community of over 100,000 technologists around the world.
In 2018/2019, I was fortunate enough to be offered one of 50 spots at the Riot Games Hackathon hosted at their HQ in LA, out of 2,500+ applicants.
- Visualiser for watching livestreamers
- Kills displayed in left panel
- Shop purchases/sales displayed in right panel
- Tabletop simulator with champion capsules on the table, shows deaths, but not character movement.
๐ Overall Winning Team
- Inspired by previous year project, though with more action emphasis to utilise AR.
- Character positions can be read in real time, allowing this app to connect to live championship games being played.
- Timeline scrubbing
- Movement trails for path visualisation
While at my first event in 2018, I had the incredible honour to meet ex-World Of Warcraft + Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan. I don't really have anything meaningful to type here, I just thought it was so cool, what a legend.
Awarded one of two available spots across our university for an honours scholarship to study in South Korea over the summer.
Study focus on (Grade A) Project Management / (Grade A+) C++ Engineering