Glen MacKay

Glen MacKay

I write about leverage and the builder's mindset — getting more done by operating and building systems, not just consuming them.

Technology and data leader in the games industry, working at the intersection of AI, engineering leverage, and lean, high-output teams. I'm interested in how a builder's mindset — a bias toward understanding, operating, and building systems rather than just consuming them — compounds into real capability, whether that's running a data platform, deploying an AI-assisted workflow, or building practical hands-on skills.

Featured Writing
All writing →
Selected Work
Senior Director of Data & Engineering
Plan A Games · Current
Built and now lead the Data Engineering & Data Science function from 0→1 at an early-stage user-acquisition funding startup — standing up the core stack across Snowflake, dbt, GCP, and CI/CD, introducing AI-assisted workflows across delivery and operations, and partnering with founders on technical strategy, investor readiness, and roadmap execution.
Senior Director of Data Engineering
Big Fish Games · 2024–2025
Led data strategy and analytics for a key publishing initiative through a data-as-a-service model. Redesigned the organization from consultants to FTEs — reducing headcount costs 52% and system costs 53% — while increasing team output 35% and maintaining zero regretted attrition.
Director / Senior Manager, Data Engineering
Big Fish Games · 2020–2024
Stewarded up to $7M annually across a blended team of ~19. Delivered a cross-system event segmentation platform driving an estimated $1.23M annual revenue lift, and a data-as-a-platform architecture processing 50,000 events per second at petabyte scale with 99.96% uptime.
Engineering Leadership
Mobile gaming · 2015–2020
Progressed from engineer to Senior Software Engineering Manager supporting mobile titles with $1B+ lifetime revenue — building backend systems, APIs, and scalable data layers across LiveOps and studio operations.
Get in Touch

I'm especially interested in conversations about engineering leverage, AI as a practical tool, and building systems and teams that compound. If something here resonates, I'd welcome hearing from you.