Tully Edson
Senior Director of Engineering | AI and Large-Scale Engineering Leadership
Austin, TX | 512-917-9983 | tedson@theedsons.com
Highly technical engineering executive with more than 30 years building software platforms and leading very large teams. Stays hands-on with current technology and partners with internal and external customers and Product to turn needs into plans. Leads Zynga’s AI engineering team building software and game-building factories, knowledge bases, and systems that protect personal information and secrets for safe AI use in a billion-dollar company.
Core Expertise
AI engineering and data safety • Large-team leadership • Hands-on architecture • Customer and Product partnership • Developer platforms • CI/CD • DevSecOps • FinOps
Professional Experience
- Lead development of a software factory, game-building factory, and knowledge bases that bring advanced AI into software and game creation.
- Work with internal customers and Product to define plans; shape AI systems that protect PII, secrets, and other sensitive data.
- Created a multi-year Central Technology platform plan and led DevOps, Build Technology, Automation Engineering, DevSecOps, and FinOps; standardized build, test, release, security, and reporting.
- Built a hybrid build platform adopted by more than 40 games; established FinOps, saving more than $2.4 million in cloud spend in its first year.
- Rebuilt DevSecOps after staffing fell to two; team health rose from 1.2 to 4.4 out of 5 in a year. Helped reorganize Central Technology and mentored future leaders.
- Designed common game libraries and modernized DevOps with infrastructure as code and shared tooling; aligned plans with product managers and producers, cutting millions in spend.
- Progressed from Principal Software Engineer and Architect to Chief Architect. Designed a global agent network handling more than 1 million measurements per hour and 1 petabyte per month for a $100 million business.
- Automated staged deployment to thousands of machines and built real-time data-flow monitoring for Operations, NOC, and Support.
- Designed and implemented VoIP, audio-anomaly, and 20-plus-protocol agents; Firefox and Chrome agents reused 85% of code, reducing the maintenance team by two thirds. Received the first DXcellence Award.
Earlier Experience
- MetalShard, Inc. | Founder | 2003-2004. Founded, marketed, and sold a turn-based Pocket PC game.
- Sheer Genius Software | UI Designer and VP Product Strategies | 2001-2003. Built desktop UI and evaluated customer-driven product opportunities.
- Agillion | Senior Software Engineer and Interface Design Manager | 2000-2001. Led a mixed team building a communications SaaS UI.
- Protosoft / Platinum Technology / Computer Associates | Engineer to Team Lead | 1993-2000. Built reusable diagramming software, ported it to Unix, and received patents.
Education
BS, Software Engineering | University of Houston-Clear Lake | 1994