est. 1997

ALEX RICHER — STUDIO PROGRAMMING DIRECTOR

18+ years shipping AAA games at Eidos-Montréal, Ubisoft, Square Enix, now leading engineering at creā-ture Studios.

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Currently at creā-ture Studios Leading engineering at creā-ture Studios (Nacon group)

Years in Games

Shipped Titles

Leadership Years

AI R&D Years

Currently @ creā-ture Studios

About

Building Worlds, Leading Teams

I'm Alex Richer, a technical leader and programming director with 18+ years shipping AAA games and 12+ years leading engineering teams. It started in 1997 with a QBasic programming course at La Magdeleine high school. My friend and I built a PacMan clone that far outgrew the assignment, and I've been hooked on interactive worlds ever since.

After years in enterprise software and mobile development, I joined the games industry in 2008 as a UI programmer on Deus Ex: Human Revolution at Eidos-Montréal. Honestly, that cyberpunk world shaped my career philosophy as much as the game itself. Build immersive experiences, and sweat the interface.

Since then, I've led teams and contributed to major franchises at Ubisoft Montréal, collaborated with Crystal Dynamics on Tomb Raider through Eidos-Montréal, directed development at Studio Onoma, and led gameplay/AI engineering on Fable at Eidos-Montréal in collaboration with Playground Games. Today, I'm the Studio Programming Director at creā-ture Studios (part of the Nacon group), fully remote.

I hold an Organizational Leadership certificate from HEC Montréal (2017). My day-to-day spans technical leadership, programming direction, people management, and AI-augmented engineering, with 3+ years of hands-on work building agentic pipelines that earn their place in the toolchain. Honestly, the best games come from teams with autonomy, a clear technical direction, and the trust to push back.

Greater Montréal, Canada100% RemoteHEC Montréal Leadership (2017)18+ Years ExperienceFR / EN / ES

My Story

The Journey Behind the Code

From a kid glued to movies and computers to a studio programming director, here's how the pieces fell into place.

1980s – 1990s

A Kid With a Remote and a Keyboard

It started in the 80s. I fell in love with video games early. Atari, then NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, watching a whole universe of platformers and RPGs bloom with each new console. Alongside that came an obsession with movies. I was the kid who watched the same VHS tapes until the tracking went bad, fascinated by how stories could pull you into another world. Computers were the third obsession. School put me in front of Macs, and that's where I first fell for interfaces. Then came the home-PC era: DOS prompts, Linux dual-boots, Windows 3.1, and every release that followed (95, 98, ME, 2000, NT 4, XP, and on up to 10 and 11). I watched the dot-com bubble inflate and burst in real time. Then in 1997, at La Magdeleine high school, a QBasic programming course lit the fuse. My friend and I didn't just complete the assignment, we built a full PacMan clone from scratch, aced both the programming and the internet-development courses with perfect scores, and barely scratched the surface of what felt possible. I didn't know it yet, but video games were where those passions (cinema, code, and the relentless urge to tinker) would eventually collide. When you think about it, video games are the new cinema. Interactive stories you don't just watch, you live.

1999 – 2007

First Websites, First Spark

In high school, I designed and built my school's official website from scratch, with HTML, Flash, Photoshop, the full late-'90s toolkit. That caught someone's attention, and I was hired as a webmaster for a small company in La Prairie. That's where the spark became a fire. I found a real passion for IT. I studied computer science at night while working full-time, sharpening my skills at CGI, Jean Coutu, and Bluestreak. Along the way, I fell in love with UI/UX, making interfaces neat, effective, and intuitive. Mostly self-taught, always obsessed with the details. Mind you, I never studied UI directly. It was all picked up through doing.

2008 – 2014

The Leap Into Games

In 2008 I finally made the jump. I joined a brand-new studio called Eidos-Montréal as a UI programmer and went headfirst into Deus Ex: Human Revolution, one of the most anticipated video games of that era. Cyberpunk interfaces, immersive menus, a world that demanded pixel-perfect craft. I went on to contribute to Tomb Raider, then crossed over to Ubisoft to help ship Watch_Dogs. So, the film kid had found his cinema. Except the audience was holding the controller.

2015 – 2022

From Code to Leadership

Leading the UI team on Watch_Dogs 2 changed everything. I clearly had a passion for building teams without realizing it. Building a great team turned out to be just as creative as building a great interface. At Ubisoft I led one of the most efficient UI teams I've ever seen, artists, UX experts, programmers, and testers from a dozen backgrounds, all pulling together. Later, as Development Director at Square Enix Montréal, I owned the technical direction of a mobile project and focused on growing every person on the team with a custom path. People first, always.

2022 – Today

Full Circle

After leading gameplay and AI engineering on Fable at Eidos-Montréal, I'm now Studio Programming Director at creā-ture Studios (part of the Nacon group, fully remote). When you think about it, the loop is closed. The kid who wanted to make movies is now directing the technology behind interactive worlds, leading distributed teams across time zones, driving AI-augmented R&D, and still geeking out over a well-crafted interface. The tools have changed, but the drive is the same. Build something people feel.

Beyond the Screen

Work is a big part of who I am. Mind you, it's not the whole picture.

EpicureanLife's too short for bad food

Father & HusbandFamily is the anchor

Movie BuffWhere it all started

Based in

Montréal, QC, Canada

Greater Montréal area

Beyond the Code

Fun Facts

First Game

PacMan clone in QBasic (1997)

First Code

QBasic (1997)

First Website

School site in La Prairie (1999)

First Console

Atari (Pitfall!), then NES, SNES, Genesis

Languages

French, English, Spanish

Teams Led

6+ across 3 studios

AI Developer

3+ years building agentic pipelines

Home Lab

Unraid, PCs, smart home & cybersecurity

Game Jams

A few between 2020 and 2026, staying in the game

Philosophy

What I Believe In

Empowered Teams

The best games are built by teams that feel ownership, autonomy, and purpose. So, great leadership is mostly about removing obstacles, not creating them.

Clear Vision

Whether AAA or indie, every great game starts with a clear creative and technical vision that the team can rally behind.

Clean Engineering

Sustainable development needs disciplined architecture. Honestly, code should be a foundation for creativity, not a barrier to it.

Protect Your People

A leader's job is to shield the team from noise, politics, and shifting priorities, so they can focus on building great things.

Remote-First Culture

Distributed teams thrive with trust, async communication, and intentional culture. I've led remote teams across continents, and honestly, it works when you invest in it.

Growth Mindset

Building a custom development path for each person on the team. When you invest in people's growth, it shows up later in quality, retention, and team health.

Inclusive by Design

Diversity of thought, background, and experience makes teams stronger. So, I push for environments where collaboration wins over hierarchy.

Empathic Leadership

Genuine understanding of your team, your users, and the people your work serves is the foundation of every good decision. Listen first, lead second.

People Before Product

The product is only as good as the people who build it. Invest in the humans first, in their growth, their wellbeing, their sense of purpose, and quality follows naturally.

Career

Career Timeline

1997
First Lines of Code & First Game
Self-taught
I started programming in QBasic and built a PacMan clone from scratch. That clone is what got me hooked on interactive experiences.
1999
First Professional Websites
La Prairie, QC
I built websites professionally, including my school's official site and one for the La Prairie Historical Society (HTML, Flash, Photoshop).
2002–2005
Consultant
CGI
Started as an intern on the Bell Sympatico project, then returned as a consultant building internal tools, troubleshooting utilities, and supporting BCE infrastructure.
2005–2007
Analyst-Programmer
Groupe Jean Coutu
Part of the Canadian team building the POS system for the Jean Coutu pharmacy chain, managing sales, inventory, cashier systems, and reports across hundreds of locations. The terminal UI ran entirely in ASCII art under Unix, and I put genuine care into making it intuitive for the pharmacists and cashiers using it daily. Also contributed to the Air Miles loyalty program integration. C on Unix.
2007–2008
Developer, Mobile TV
Bluestreak
Developed and managed the MobileTV product for cell phone carriers. Travelled to Budapest, Hungary to support the live deployment on T-Mobile Hungary's infrastructure. Worked with ChinaMobile for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Also developed the UI for the LG Renoir (KC910), LG's first touchscreen phone.
2008–2011
UI Programmer/Specialist, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Eidos-Montréal
Joined the game industry and shipped Deus Ex: Human Revolution, responsible for developing the entire user interface using Scaleform/C++. Also shipped The Missing Link DLC.
→ Deus Ex: Human Revolution
2011–2012
UI Programmer/Specialist, Tomb Raider
Eidos-Montréal (collab with Crystal Dynamics)
Collaborated with Crystal Dynamics through Eidos-Montréal on the Tomb Raider reboot. Built the framework for the 3D main menu and multiplayer menus, developed HUD systems, and established UI architecture standards reused across the team.
→ Tomb Raider
2011–2013
Programmer, Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut
Eidos-Montréal
Enhanced edition with improved boss fights, developer commentary, and Wii U integration. Programmed UI adaptations for the Wii U GamePad, extending the shell for new platform features and the updated boss encounter pacing.
→ Deus Ex: Human Revolution — Director's Cut
2013–2014
UI/Gameplay Developer, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Eidos-Montréal
Established the UI architecture and early development direction on the then-unannounced sequel to Human Revolution, using Scaleform and C++, before transitioning to Ubisoft. Foundational work credited as Special Thanks and carried forward into the final release.
→ Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
2013–2014
Generalist/UI Programmer, Watch_Dogs
Ubisoft Montréal
Led a performance team to achieve UI budgets across PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One. Adapted next-gen UI for last-gen targets, implemented profiling technology, and shipped the game.
→ Watch_Dogs
2014–2015
Generalist Programmer, Technology Group
Ubisoft
I worked on core features of Ubisoft's next-gen in-house UI middleware, the one meant to replace Scaleform/Flash with better performance, better portability, and tools artists actually wanted to use.
2015–2017
Team Lead Programming (UI), Watch_Dogs 2SIGNATURE
Ubisoft Montréal
My first major leadership role. I led 8 programmers building a new UI architecture in C++ on Ubisoft's in-house middleware, MVC patterns, UI-agnostic by design. The stack was reused on Watch_Dogs Legion. And honestly, we shipped with a sustainable workload, which isn't exactly the norm in AAA.
2017–2019
Team Lead Programming (UI), Undisclosed Ubisoft Project
Ubisoft
Built and led a 12+ person multi-discipline UI team on an undisclosed PS4/Xbox One title, an ambitious live-service project that went through significant creative evolution. Wore multiple hats: Team Lead Programming, coordinating with CPIs, PMs, and Team Leads across art and other disciplines. Led the full UI migration from Flash/Scaleform to Ubisoft's new in-house framework, run alongside active game development, with no milestone impact on any other team. Managed distributed remote teams.
~2018
UI Support, Far Cry 5
Ubisoft Montréal
Assisted the Far Cry 5 team with UI programming and shipping support while leading the UI team on the primary project.
→ Far Cry 5
2017–2019
Team Lead Programming, Undisclosed Ubisoft Project (Cancelled)
Ubisoft
An undisclosed AAA title that ran close to 3 years before being cancelled. An ambitious live-service open-world project, packed with hard technical problems from start to finish. The Flash-to-new-framework UI migration shipped clean and was recognized internally as a win, the kind where the technical work outlasts the project itself. So when cancellation came, the work that actually mattered was protecting team morale and helping each person land their next step.
→ Undisclosed Project (Cancelled)
2020
Team Lead UI, Undisclosed Ubisoft Project
Ubisoft Montréal
Led UI programming on an undisclosed AAA title at Ubisoft Montréal. The project was ultimately cancelled before I transitioned to Square Enix.
→ Undisclosed Project (Cancelled)
2020–2022
Development Director, Arena Battle Champions
Studio Onoma (formerly Square Enix Montréal)
Technical director of Arena Battle Champions, a mobile MOBA for Android/iOS at Studio Onoma (formerly Square Enix Montréal, rebranded in 2021). I led senior programmers across gameplay, backend, AI, UI, tooling, and graphics. I set the technical roadmaps, opened an R&D collaboration with Eidos Sherbrooke, and built a custom growth path for each person on the team. I stayed through the studio closure on November 24, 2022, supporting the team through the transition.
→ Arena Battle Champions
2022–2025
Lead Gameplay/AI Programmer, Fable
Eidos-Montréal (collab with Playground Games)
I led a team of gameplay and AI engineers contributing to Fable in collaboration with Playground Games. Playground is in the UK, a 5-hour gap from Montréal that forced deliberate leadership: async-first habits, tight written communication, scheduled overlap windows, and trust built up over time across two studios that operate very differently. On top of the time-zone gap, we aligned studio cultures and pipelines while working on hard technical problems, the kind where open-world systems run into a custom AAA gameplay-engine architecture.
→ Fable
Oct 2025–Now
Studio Programming Director
creā-ture Studios Inc.
I lead programming strategy and execution at creā-ture Studios (part of the Nacon group), 100% remote from Montréal. Autonomous teams, clean engineering, async-first by default. Currently leading programming on Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Rageborn (announced at Nacon Connect). I'm also driving internal AI-augmented R&D for Unreal Engine workflows.

Years in the Craft

Coding Since 1997

A year-by-year read of the career, from a QBasic PacMan clone to shipping AAA. Brighter cells mark the years a title shipped.

Career intensity by year, 1997 to present. Cell brightness reflects how active each year was: the early-web years sit low, the game-industry years sit higher, and shipped-title years are brightest.
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s

LessMore

One Craft, Many Worlds

The Skills That Recur

The same engineering shows up title after title. The bigger the star, the more games that skill shaped.

Milestones

Deus Ex: HR, Built the entire UI

Watch_Dogs 2, First Lead Role

Led 12+ Person Multi-Discipline Team

Dev Director, Square Enix Montréal

Fable, Lead Gameplay/AI @ Eidos

Beijing Olympics, MobileTV (2008)

HEC Montréal Leadership Certificate

11+ Credited Titles Shipped

18+ Years in Games (since 2008)

Remote Teams Across 3 Continents

First Website, La Prairie, QC (1999)

LG Renoir, First Touchscreen Phone UI (2008)

Watch_Dogs 2 Architecture Reused on WD Legion

AI-Augmented Unreal Engine R&D @ creā-ture (Nacon)

★ Signature Work

View on MobyGames Project details →

prevnext

Portfolio

Games I've Built

Action RPG

Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Rageborn

creā-ture Studios (Nacon group) · 2025–Now

Studio Programming Director

Announced at Nacon Connect. As Studio Programming Director at creā-ture Studios (Nacon group), I lead the programming team shipping Rageborn, the next entry in the Werewolf: The Apocalypse universe, in Unreal Engine.

LeadershipProgramming DirectionProgramming StrategyStudio BuildingHiringAI-Augmented R&DRemote-First LeadershipUnreal EngineStudio Operations

Indie

Details

Action RPG

Fable

Eidos-Montréal (collab with Playground Games) · 2022–2025

Lead Gameplay/AI Programmer

Led 12 gameplay and AI engineers at Eidos-Montréal on Fable, in co-dev with Playground Games. Cross-studio work across UK–Montréal time zones, two studio cultures, and deep AAA technical challenges.

GameplayAILeadershipCross-Studio Co-DevAsync-First LeadershipDistributed TeamsRetentionMentorshipMulti-Trade EngineeringCustom Engine

AAA

Details

MOBA / Mobile

Arena Battle Champions

Studio Onoma (formerly Square Enix Montréal) · 2020–2022

Development Director / Engineer

Mobile MOBA developed at Square Enix Montréal (later Studio Onoma). Development Director on the engineering team across all disciplines.

MobileLeadershipDevelopment DirectionMulti-Discipline EngineeringBackendAI SystemsMentorshipCustom Growth PathsR&D CollaborationCancellation LeadershipUnity

Mobile

Details

Undisclosed

Undisclosed Project (Cancelled)

Ubisoft Montréal · 2020

Team Lead UI

Led UI programming on an undisclosed AAA title at Ubisoft Montréal. The project was cancelled before completion.

LeadershipUIC++Custom EngineCancellation Leadership

Cancelled

Details

Undisclosed

Undisclosed Project (Cancelled)

Ubisoft Montréal · 2017–2019

Team Lead Programming

Led programming on an undisclosed PS4/Xbox One live-service open-world title that went through major creative pivots. Cancelled after ~3 years in development.

LeadershipMulti-Discipline LeadershipTeam ManagementHiring at ScaleMigration (Flash → In-House)Live-Service ArchitectureDistributed TeamsCancellation LeadershipC++Custom Engine

Cancelled

Details

Open World / Action

Far Cry 5

Ubisoft Montréal · 2018

UI Programmer

UI programming and shipping support on Far Cry 5 while still leading the UI team on Watch_Dogs 2.

UIShipping SupportShip RescueMulti-Project CoordinationLocalizationRTL SupportC++Custom Engine

AAA

Details

Action / Arcade

Deus Ex: Breach

Eidos-Montréal · 2016

Special Thanks

Standalone arcade mode spun off from Mankind Divided. Credited as Special Thanks for foundational UI work carried over from the main project.

UIC++Architecture Reuse

AAA

Details

Action RPG / Immersive Sim

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Eidos-Montréal · 2016

UI/Gameplay Developer (Special Thanks)

Sequel to Human Revolution. Set up the UI architecture and ran early development and optimization before moving to Ubisoft. Credited as Special Thanks.

UI ArchitectureFoundational ArchitectureC++ScaleformOptimization

AAA

Details

Open World / Action-Adventure

Watch_Dogs 2

Ubisoft Montréal · 2016

Team Lead UI/Presentation

First major leadership role. Led 8 programmers building a full new UI architecture in C++ using Ubisoft's in-house middleware. The architecture was reused on Watch_Dogs Legion. Shipped with a sustainable workload thanks to strong process and people-first leadership.

UI ArchitectureMVCLeadershipTeam BuildingHiringRetentionMentorshipPeople-First LeadershipCross-Discipline CollaborationSustainable CadenceC++PerformanceCustom EngineArchitecture Reuse

AAA

Details

Open World / Action-Adventure

Watch_Dogs

Ubisoft Montréal · 2014

Generalist/UI Programmer

Ubisoft's open-world hacking game. Led a performance team to optimize UI across 4 platforms (PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One). Implemented profiling technology and shipped the game's menu and interface systems.

UI OptimizationPerformanceProfilingPerformance Team LeadCross-Generation PortsC++Multi-platformCustom Engine

AAA

Details

Action RPG / Immersive Sim

Deus Ex: Human Revolution — Director's Cut

Eidos-Montréal · 2013

Programmer

Enhanced edition with reworked boss fights, developer commentary, and Wii U integration. Continued programming on the definitive edition.

UIC++Wii UGamePad IntegrationMulti-platform

AAA

Details

Action-Adventure

Tomb Raider

Eidos-Montréal (collab with Crystal Dynamics) · 2013

UI Developer

Gritty reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise. Collaborated with Crystal Dynamics through Eidos-Montréal. Built the 3D main menu framework, multiplayer menu systems, HUD, and UI architecture standards reused across the team.

UIMultiplayer UIScaleformActionScriptC++Cross-Studio CollaborationArchitecture Standards

AAA

Details

Action RPG / Immersive Sim

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Eidos-Montréal · 2011

UI Specialist / Programmer

Cyberpunk RPG that relaunched the Deus Ex franchise. Shipped the full UI (HUD, menu systems, outer shell) in Scaleform and C++.

UI SystemsHUDMenusOuter ShellScaleformActionScriptC++Multi-platform

AAA

Details

Action RPG / Immersive Sim

Deus Ex: Human Revolution — The Missing Link

Eidos-Montréal · 2011

Additional Programming

Standalone DLC extending the Deus Ex: HR story. Additional programming on the expansion's UI and systems.

UIScaleformC++DLC Architecture

AAA

Details

Expertise

Skills & Capabilities

Hard Skills

Technical Expertise

Game Programming (C++, C#)

90%

UI/UX Systems

92%

Gameplay & AI

85%

Engine Architecture

85%

AI-Augmented Development

88%

Performance Profiling

82%

Technologies & Tools

Languages

C++C#TypeScriptPythonActionScriptSQLJavaJavaScriptHTML/CSS

Engines & Middleware

Unreal EngineUnityCustom In-House EnginesScaleform/Flash

Tools & Workflow

Visual StudioPerforceGitJiraConfluenceMiroOffice 365Console SDKs/XDKs

Platforms

PlayStation (PS3–PS5)Xbox (360–Series X)PCNintendo (Wii U)iOSAndroid

Methodologies

Agile/ScrumRemote Team LeadershipMVC ArchitectureData-Driven DevelopmentAutomated UI Testing

AI Dev Tools

Claude CodeClaude CoWorkopencodeCodexGemini CLIPersonal harnessGitHub Copilot (past)Cursor (past)Windsurf (past)OpenHands (OpenClaw)

Web Frameworks

Next.jsReactTailwind CSSTypeScriptBunNode.jsPHPHTML/CSS

Soft Skills

Leadership & People

Technical Leadership

Translating vision into executable technical strategy. Running programming departments, setting direction, and balancing innovation with shipping reality.

People Management

Building trust, running 1:1s that matter, career growth conversations, difficult feedback delivered with care. Protecting people's time and dignity.

Empathy & Psychological Safety

Creating teams where people can say 'I don't know' without fear. Listening more than speaking. Making space for diverse voices and styles.

Strategic Thinking

Zooming out from daily tactics to see the board. Long-horizon planning, risk assessment, anticipating cross-team dependencies and bottlenecks.

Communication & Clarity

Making complex technical tradeoffs understandable for execs, artists, designers. Written clarity (docs, PRs, incident reports) as a leadership multiplier.

Mentorship & Coaching

Growing other leaders. Custom growth paths for each individual. The best measure of a leader is how many leaders they develop.

Conflict Resolution

Turning disagreement into better outcomes. Mediating cross-discipline tensions, holding hard conversations, repairing trust when it breaks.

Decision-Making Under Uncertainty

Shipping with incomplete info. Time-boxed decisions, disagree and commit, reversible vs irreversible calls, post-mortems without blame.

Remote & Distributed Leadership

Leading teams across continents and time zones. Async-first culture, written thinking, intentional presence, avoiding presence theater.

Cross-Studio Collaboration

Shipping AAA with co-dev partners (Playground Games on Fable, Crystal Dynamics on Tomb Raider). Aligning different studios' cultures and pipelines.

AI in Practice

How I Use AI

By 2026, AI is a tool like a profiler or a debugger. Powerful, opinionated, and only useful if you understand where it helps and where it lies. After 3+ years of daily work with agentic systems and custom pipelines, essentially everything I build now runs through agents. I don't take one model's word for it either. What ships is what survived being argued with.

Faster Iteration

I use AI to move through options quickly. Brainstorming UI flows, drafting docs, generating test matrices, planning refactors. Then I validate everything against real code and real data.

Verification Mindset

I treat AI output as hypotheses. For high-stakes work, I verify with tests, profiling, code review, and reproducible steps, especially for performance and gameplay-critical systems.

Privacy & NDA Safe

I don't paste proprietary code, internal tools, or unreleased details into cloud AI systems. For sensitive work I lean on local models (Gemma, Qwen, Llama) running on my workstation. Public posts focus on principles and sanitized examples.

Context Engineering

The best model with bad context loses to a smaller model with the right context. I curate system prompts, select only the files that matter, compress history, and reset when the plan drifts.

Agentic Workflows

Autocomplete stopped being the interesting part years ago. Multi-step agents with real tools (file edits, shell, web, structured tool interfaces) now take end-to-end slices: research, plan, implement, verify. That's where close to all of my work happens. I structure them with explicit checkpoints, atomic commits, and human review at blast-radius boundaries.

Adversarial Review

I run the models against each other so nothing ships on a single opinion. One drafts, another challenges it, a third rules on what actually holds up. Where they agree, I move fast. Where they disagree is usually where the real problem was hiding, and that's the part that gets my own attention.

Complexity Routing

Opus 5 is the main driver, with Fable 5 running constantly beside it. GPT-5.6 gets tiered by how hard the problem is: luna for fast turns, terra for day-to-day work, sol when something earns a slow careful pass. Sensitive or bulk work stays on local models. Matching the model to the problem beats defaulting to the biggest one.

AI as a Multiplier

A well-directed AI can 10× an experienced engineer's output. A poorly-directed one produces confident garbage at scale. The skill is in the direction. The right model, the right context, the right checkpoints, and the judgment to know when to override it.

Tooling as Integration Layer

Structured tool interfaces bridge the gap between AI models and real systems. Wire them into your services (file systems, APIs, CI/CD, databases, internal tooling) and agents stop suggesting things and start shipping work. AI belongs in the pipeline, not bolted on after.

AI Stack

Frontier and Local

The models I lean on day-to-day. I don't pick one and stay loyal to it. They run against each other, and the disagreements are the useful part. Frontier models do the heavy lifting; local models cover sovereignty, offline work, and keeping a foot in the open-weight world.

Frontier

Opus 5

Main driver

Anthropic

My main driver. Reasoning, agentic loops, long-running coding sessions where I need the model to hold context and stay on plan.

Fable 5

Main driver

Anthropic

Anthropic's newest flagship, and a constant now rather than an occasional treat. It runs beside Opus 5 on most sessions and catches the things a single model talks itself into.

GPT-5.6 (sol / terra / luna)

Main driver

OpenAI

The counterweight to Claude, tiered luna / terra / sol by how hard the problem is. When it disagrees with Opus, that disagreement is usually worth more than either answer on its own.

Sonnet 5 & Haiku 4.5

Also using

Anthropic

Sonnet 5 handles volume: repo-wide passes, test writing, the long boring refactors. Haiku takes the fast cheap turns where anything bigger is waste.

GLM-5.2 (z.ai)

Also using

Zhipu / z.ai

Frontier alternative outside the Claude/OpenAI bubble. Cost-aware, surprisingly capable on coding tasks, and a useful tiebreaker when two other models disagree.

Local

Qwen 3.7

Alibaba

Open-weight workhorse, the latest Qwen 3.7 release. Coder, VL, and instruct variants cover most local needs.

Gemma 4

Google

Tight, well-behaved on instruction-following. Good fit for low-VRAM machines.

GLM-5.2

Zhipu

Open-weight family I keep on hand for sovereignty experiments and offline work.

DeepSeek-V4

DeepSeek

Heavier local reasoning when the GPU budget allows for it.

Llama 4

Mistral / Codestral

Mistral

European open-weight, strong on code. Codestral is the one I reach for on local code tasks.

Plus whatever the Hugging Face leaderboards surface this week. The local rotation evolves fast.

Education

Academic Background

HEC Montréal

2017

Certificate, Organizational Leadership

Executive-level leadership training from one of Canada's top business schools. Applied immediately to team-building at Ubisoft.

UQAM — Université du Québec à Montréal

2006–2009

Certificate, Computer Science

Studied computer science at night while working full-time — because the drive to learn never fits a single schedule.

Champlain College St-Lambert

1999–2002

DEC, Computer Science

Programming-intensive program: C, C++, Java, Cobol, VB, ASP. Internship at CGI. The formal start of a path mostly paved by doing.

Self-directed learning

Formal education gave me strong foundations, but most of what I know, I built myself. Late nights on side projects, deep dives into new stacks, and hands-on experimentation with emerging tools (especially AI-augmented workflows). The industry evolves faster than any curriculum, so I learn the way I ship: by building something real.

⚜️

French

Native

🇨🇦

English

Fluent

🇪🇸

Spanish

Conversational

What I Offer

How I Can Help

Currently employed and selective, but always open to the right conversation. Consulting, contract work, or the full-time role that checks every box, 100% remote, strong team, real challenges. 18+ years on the floor.

Technical Leadership

Building and leading engineering teams that actually ship. Hiring, mentoring, getting work out the door without burning the team out.

Programming Direction

Setting technical direction, roadmaps, and architecture strategy at the org level. Decisions that hold up under shipping pressure.

Engineering Culture

Trust, psychological safety, sustainable cadence, async-first practices, written-thinking discipline. The day-to-day environment where engineers do their best work.

Studio Culture

Hiring philosophy, values, all-hands rhythm, cross-discipline collaboration. The rituals that make a studio a place people want to stay.

UI/UX Systems

Game UI architecture, middleware, and UX systems. Scaleform, custom engines, modern frameworks, I've shipped on all three.

AI Integration & Automation

Building agentic pipelines, MCP integrations, and end-to-end automation. 3+ years of hands-on work shipping AI inside engineering pipelines that earns its keep.

AI-Augmented Engineering

Helping engineering organizations adopt AI without making a mess of it. Rules of engagement, context engineering, cost-aware model routing, verification mindset, and the judgment a team needs to direct AI rather than be directed by it.

Cross-Studio Collaboration & Co-Dev

Shipping AAA with co-dev partners across studio cultures and time zones. Fable with Playground Games (5-hour gap, async-first, zero attrition), Tomb Raider with Crystal Dynamics. Aligning pipelines and people when nobody can walk down the hall.

Remote & Distributed Leadership

Leading engineering teams across continents and time zones. Async-first culture, written cadence, intentional overlap windows, no presence theater. 100% remote at creā-ture today, with teams led across 3 continents over the years.

Ship Rescue & Shipping Support

Parachuting senior engineers into a struggling project to get it across the finish line. Far Cry 5 mandate (~6 months, salvaged the worst-offender UI systems, added Arabic RTL). Fixed-scope contract, land me and my best on your project for a quarter, ship the thing.

Engineering Hiring & Org Design

Hiring strategy, custom growth paths, mentorship at scale, IC-to-lead transitions. HEC Montréal Leadership Certificate plus 12+ years building multi-discipline teams of 12+ engineers.

Technical Due Diligence

Independent senior-eyes review for studio acquisitions, investor diligence, or pre-launch tech-debt audits. 18+ years across multiple AAA codebases. Fixed scope: two weeks, written report.

Leading Through Cancellation

How to lead a team through cancellation with morale intact, knowledge preserved, and people landed in good next roles. Project Turing (3 years, cancelled) and the Studio Onoma closure are first-hand experience. Rare and painful, but the kind of thing you really want someone who's been through it before.

Speaking, Workshops & Talks

AI-augmented engineering for game dev, leadership through cancellation, cross-studio co-dev, remote-first practices. Available for paid speaking, internal workshops, and conferences.

THUD Framework Implementation

Adopting and adapting THUD (job-level frameworks, core competencies, behavioral indicators, DEI expansion) for your engineering org. Originally written for video games and freely available under Creative Commons. I help you implement it for performance reviews, growth paths, and clear expectations at every level.

100% RemoteAvailable for remote positions and consulting worldwide

Currently

What I'm Consuming

Reading

The Art of Game Design

Jesse Schell

Clean Code

Robert C. Martin

High Output Management

Andrew S. Grove

TV & Film

Beef

Season 2 — brilliant, uncomfortable and deeply human

Adolescence

One of the best limited series in years

Rooster

Sharp, funny, highly watchable

YouTube

The Why Files

NHI, UAP & unexplained phenomena

Tech & Hardware channels

PC building, gadgets & home lab

Playing

Cities: Skylines

City Builder

Simulation at its finest

Factorio

Factory Strategy

Pure systems thinking in game form

NHL 26

Sports (EA)

Annual tradition

Schedule 1

Indie Simulation

Surprisingly deep indie gem

Interests

Sci-fi & speculative fictionNHI / UAP researchHome lab (Unraid)Building PCsDomotics & smart homeCybersecurity

Media & Talks

In the Conversation

Interview With Alex Richer

Spotify2021

Crater Corner Podcast — Square Enix, Ubisoft & Crystal Dynamics

In-depth conversation about UI programming on some of the biggest games at Ubisoft and Crystal Dynamics — Tomb Raider, Watch_Dogs, and Deus Ex. Aug 2021.

Listen / View

Game Developer Profile

WebOngoing

MobyGames Credits & Career

Comprehensive game credits database listing 11+ shipped titles spanning AAA and mobile platforms across an 18+ year career.

Listen / View

Evidence

Public Sources

Some details are intentionally generalized for NDA and privacy reasons. These links back up the public-facing timeline, credits, and media.

Most current roles and month-level dates.

Profile

CV

Resume with full career timeline and skills — print or save as PDF from your browser.

View

MobyGames

Public credits database (11+ credited titles).

Credits

IMDb

Independent credits database (Watch Dogs, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider).

Credits

Crater Corner Podcast

Interview covering Ubisoft, Crystal Dynamics, and Deus Ex work (2021).

Listen

Kind Words

What People Say

“I had the pleasure of working with Alexandre at Eidos on Fable, a co-development project with Playground Games. All my interactions with him were excellent. Alexandre is a thoughtful and supportive manager who genuinely cares about the people he leads. The respect and appreciation from his team speak volumes about the quality of his leadership.”

Florent Cohen

Programmer — Eidos-Montréal (Fable)

Connect

Let's Build Together

Looking for a technical leader, a programming director, an AI integration partner, or just want to talk video games? I'm always up for connecting with people who care about the craft.

Prefer to reach out directly? Find me on social media or send a traditional email. I typically respond within 24–48 hours.

LinkedIn MobyGames Email

Quick Links

creā-ture Studios View & Print CV

Open to conversations. Currently leading at creā-ture Studios. Always interested in connecting with fellow video game developers, technical leaders, and teams exploring AI integration and agentic automation.

ALEX RICHER — STUDIO PROGRAMMING DIRECTOR

01About

Building Worlds, Leading Teams

02My Story

The Journey Behind the Code

A Kid With a Remote and a Keyboard

First Websites, First Spark

The Leap Into Games

From Code to Leadership

Full Circle

Beyond the Screen

Based in

Beyond the Code

Fun Facts

First Game

First Code

First Website

First Console

Languages

Teams Led

AI Developer

Home Lab

Game Jams

03Philosophy

What I Believe In

Empowered Teams

Clear Vision

Clean Engineering

Protect Your People

Remote-First Culture

Growth Mindset

Inclusive by Design

Empathic Leadership

People Before Product

04Career

Career Timeline

First Lines of Code & First Game

First Professional Websites

Consultant

Analyst-Programmer

Developer, Mobile TV

UI Programmer/Specialist, Deus Ex: Human Revolution

UI Programmer/Specialist, Tomb Raider

Programmer, Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut

UI/Gameplay Developer, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Generalist/UI Programmer, Watch_Dogs

Generalist Programmer, Technology Group

Team Lead Programming (UI), Watch_Dogs 2SIGNATURE

Team Lead Programming (UI), Undisclosed Ubisoft Project

UI Support, Far Cry 5

Team Lead Programming, Undisclosed Ubisoft Project (Cancelled)

Team Lead UI, Undisclosed Ubisoft Project

Development Director, Arena Battle Champions

Lead Gameplay/AI Programmer, Fable

Studio Programming Director

Years in the Craft

Coding Since 1997

One Craft, Many Worlds

The Skills That Recur

Milestones

05Portfolio

Games I've Built

Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Rageborn

Fable

Arena Battle Champions

Undisclosed Project (Cancelled)

Undisclosed Project (Cancelled)

Far Cry 5

Deus Ex: Breach

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Watch_Dogs 2

Watch_Dogs

Deus Ex: Human Revolution — Director's Cut

Tomb Raider

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex: Human Revolution — The Missing Link

06Expertise

Skills & Capabilities

Hard Skills

Technical Expertise

About

My Story

Philosophy

Career

Portfolio

Expertise

What I Offer