Guy Elsmore-Paddock
Q: Who are you? Where are you from?
A: I’m Guy (he/him/his). I am responsible for ensuring that ToxMod works great in each of the game engines our customers use, including Unreal and Unity.
I grew up in Monroe, CT, about twenty minutes outside of Bridgeport, CT, and then moved to Rochester, NY for college at Rochester Institute of Technology. After graduating, I stayed in the upstate NY area until 2019 when I moved to the Boston area. Now, I live in Woburn, MA.
Q: What’s your background? What did you do before Modulate?
A: I’ve worked at organizations of all sizes, including both startups and large, Fortune 500 companies. I went to school for Software Engineering (RIT class of 2009), but most of my career has been in solutions architecture and technology leadership, creating information systems that accelerate the workflows of small- and medium-sized businesses.
Prior to joining Modulate, I was the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Engineering for Inveniem and Definitive Authentic, who specialize in cataloging, archiving, and monetizing estates for celebrities. The systems I designed and built there are behind the scenes at sites like the Metallica Black Box, the Leppard Vault, and Bon Jovi backstage.
Despite professionally being focused on information systems, I’ve always had a personal passion for game engines and game development. In high school, when everyone else in class was content just to learn how to use PowerPoint and Publisher, I was teaching myself C in study hall so I could mod the Quake and Quake 2 engines after Id Software published the source code to each in 1996 and 2001. More recently, I launched OpenPF2, an open-source port of the mechanics for Pathfinder 2nd Edition as a plug-in for Unreal Engine 5.
Q: Why are you joining Modulate?
A: Three reasons:
- I want to make a big impact on the world and Modulate is tackling a very important and difficult problem. As someone raised on the internet in the early days of AOL dial-up, I know how simultaneously powerful and dangerous online communities can be. Kids need to be safe, but keeping them off the internet and out of games isn’t the right answer, in the same way that keeping kids locked up at home until they turn eighteen so they don’t have to encounter dangerous people in public isn’t an answer either.
The same principle applies to groups who are more frequently targeted by online abuse. Everyone deserves the same opportunity to participate online and be part of a community without toxicity. ToxMod makes things safe and productive for both kids and adults, and I take a lot of pride in being part of that. - Modulate is an opportunity to turn a personal passion into a career. As I mentioned in my background, I’ve been passionate about game development since as early as high school. Despite this, I never pursued it professionally because it’s a very difficult field to break into and most of the jobs in the space pay only a fraction of what they should for how much burnout and personal sacrifice is required to ship AAA titles. Moreover, successful people in the space have been doing it professionally for more than fifteen years and prefer to hire others who have that same background; since my career has progressed differently, I would normally have little chance to break into the space and make an impact there despite having transferable skills and a fresh perspective.
Modulate gives me the opportunity to participate in the gaming space without having already dedicated my career to it. In addition, I get to develop technology that has a tremendous impact on hundreds or thousands of games instead of just one or two, at a company that recognizes the need for healthy work-life balance. - Modulate gives me the opportunity to work in an office, while recognizing that sometimes the best “flow” comes from working at home. For the five and a half years before joining Modulate, I’ve been working remotely, and have never felt more isolated and disconnected from company culture and the lives of my coworkers. I’ve also found that when one exclusively works remotely, necessary conversations get avoided and solutions to important problems get neglected—it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing only on the task that’s in front of you, instead of rising above it to see what’s really happening and affecting meaningful change.
Modulate is different. I get to come into an office multiple days a week, bask in the energy of our team’s shared success, and brainstorm around whiteboards on how to confront shared challenges. Every time I see a coworker in the kitchen or walking in the hallway is an opportunity for spontaneous collaboration and an ability to see all the cool things my coworkers are doing. At the same time, twice a week I have the option to work from home when I need to focus on difficult problems that require hours of uninterrupted focus. It’s the best of both worlds!
Q: What’s your ideal work environment? Any special strategies you use to stay effective?
A: As I touched on above, hybrid work! Having the ability to collaborate with my team in an office (ideally with access to good coffee) while having the license to isolate myself a few times a week to get in flow and focus on solving hard technical problems is the perfect mix for me.
For me to do my best work, I want to understand the “why” and “for whom” more than the “what” or the “how” – I need to know why a particular problem needs to be solved and who it will benefit, while fostering trust that my team can leave me to figure out “how” to solve it and “what” tools to use. Many times throughout my career, I’ve simultaneously worn two hats: the person working directly with the customer to understand their needs and requirements; and the lead developer of the solution, so it’s important for me to hear the voice of the customer and their pain points whenever possible so that I’m building a solution to the right problem. At the same time, I don’t assume that a solution a customer recommends is the right one before I’ve had the opportunity to research options with my team, since the best long-term solutions often aren’t the ones immediately obvious (as Henry Ford is often credited as saying, if people were asked what they wanted before the car existed, they would have said “faster horses”).
Q: Tell us about something you must have in any culture you join?
A: Focus. The fastest way to burn out your team and destroy your reputation is to do many things poorly rather than one thing very well. Nothing says that a company can only have one product or service, but it’s important that I can take pride in the quality and support of my company’s existing products or services before we put energy into developing and maintaining new ones.
Q: Who are you outside of work?
A: I’m a sci-fi geek, an aspiring guitarist, and an independent game developer. I love all things Star Trek, Stargate, and Battlestar Galactica, and follow newer shows like For All Mankind, Foundation, and Halo very closely. (I should probably get outside more… that’s a new priority for me now that I have a healthier work/life balance).
I’ve slowly been trying to teach myself how to play guitar since 2013. I’m a decent Rocksmith 2014 player, but have reached a point where I’m pretty sure I need an instructor to help me fix my technique.
The last few years, I’ve been working on my own third-person RPG in Unreal Engine that aims to be like Dragon Age but is set in the modern day (with werewolves!) and leverages OpenPF2 to provide Pathfinder-style mechanics. It’s a solo project, so I might never make something worthy of a public release, but it gives me the opportunity to try things out and hone my skills without a lot of pressure.
Q: What’s something you’re great at that few people realize?
A: Two things!
- Reverse engineering, which often involves breaking systems to learn how they work (mainly workflows and software; breaking hardware gets expensive, fast!). Do you need to know how a mysterious black box component with no documentation works under the hood? I’m your guy.
- Being able to hold a combination of high-level and low-level information in my head simultaneously. I have found that most people either prefer high-level information but don’t like to keep track of the details, or, they prefer the details but may not see how they contribute to the bigger picture. Whenever possible, I want both levels of detail so I can come up with architecture while understanding the specific constraints I need to satisfy.
Q: Leave us with a fun tidbit - a favorite joke, a story from your past, an obscure riddle, whatever you like!
A: I know a staggering amount of obscure information about all 100 episodes of the 2011 reboot of Teen Wolf and its subsequent Paramount+ movie. I’m a super fan of the series (in spite of all its flaws), have met the cast at multiple conventions (including one where I was a talent handler), and have even visited multiple filming locations in both Atlanta and Los Angeles. Try to stump me with a question about the show or its lore! Alternatively, I’m always down for a rewatch; it’s got a unique balance of fantasy, comedy, drama, and horror.
