Nicole Huesman: Melissa, I am so I am so thrilled that Joe introduced us. Um, yeah. And thank you so much for being here today and for joining us on She Lights the Way. Can you introduce yourself and just tell folks a little bit about you?

Melissa Austin: Thank you again for having me. So my name is Melissa Austin. I use she/her pronouns. I am first-generation, mixed-race in my family from both sides. I'm half Chinese. I've been in the industry, games industry specifically, or game technology, for over 14 years now, which is still kind of weird to say out loud. It's been quite a while, but it's been an amazing journey for me. I'm currently at Niantic as the Pokémon GO Senior Manager for the Technical Art Team. I've honestly been so delighted to be here because I have such an amazingly talented team that humbles me every day. And I'm also a huge Pokémon fan, so that's a bonus.

Nicole Huesman: As is my 13-year-old son. He was absolutely thrilled to hear that I was talking to you today. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. I just, wow. And I can't wait to dive into your journey. So, you know, do you think that your early years have influenced or impacted where you find yourself today?

Melissa Austin: Certainly. The theme of my career has always been helping others, and so in the format of being a technical artist in my early days, this was basically collaborating and helping other artists that were not as technical. So my job was basically to kind of help them get their assets set up. I worked with animators originally as my primary focus, so I focused on what you would call like the skeleton of like a character or something that's going to animate, and so you would use that as like a puppet system and hand that off to the animators. And so the animators would constantly work with me as far as like, Oh, you know, these are the things that I wish I had, or I, you know, I want to try to do this, but I don't know how to approach that. Is that something you can help me with? And so I found a lot of passion in helping even just the animators in the early days. 

And then it evolved into expanding to more artists than just animators. Then it was like, how do I help the environment artists? Maybe they just need a little bit more tooling to help them get assets in and out of the engine. And so it expanded into like, Oh, I'm helping them with whatever digital content creation packages they're using, like Maya, Photoshop, and how do they take those assets and get them into, like, proprietary game engine technology, which was not as straightforward as it is now with, like, Unreal or Unity.

And then my career kind of evolved again into like, Okay, instead of just helping a variety of artists, I'm also helping multiple game teams, ‘cause at a point in my career, I was helping cross game teams, not just my one team, my one studio, it was multiple teams in multiple locations on different projects.

And so, yeah, the theme has always just been focused on helping people, and that's where my passion is really lied.

Nicole Huesman: Gosh, it just feels like none of our journeys are a straight line, right? We always, we always have zigzags or a-ha moments or things that land us where we, where we end up. And I wonder for you, if you can talk about some of those pivots along your way, or some of the, some of the zigzags along your way.

Melissa Austin: Yeah, for sure. I think there were kind of four pivots that come to mind in particular for me. So first one, back to the early days, I worked at my first established game studio was Petroglyph Games. And I had a mentor technical artist there that just constantly pushed me to do more than what was expected of the role as part of the way of making a better path for myself in the realm of technical art. And so this kind of stretched me into new abilities, new skill sets, because at the time it wasn't heavily focused on like, Oh, you know, one of the tech artists superpowers is being able to automate processes or just like simplify multiple clicks down to a button for the artist. And so he kind of encouraged me to be like, no, you need to find time to do this, even if it's not technically part of our day-to-day job, like you have to keep growing the skill in order to succeed. So that was one pivotal experience early on. 

Another one, my time at Amazon, I switched from working on a game project to game engine technology, which is what you build the games on. So this was interesting because I had to work with a lot more cross-functional teams at a larger scale than I ever thought I would. Like, normally, if you're working on a game, you don't usually deal with marketing, but in this case, it's like, I'm constantly working with marketing about like, Hey, here's this new upcoming thing that we should let customers know about. Like, here's a new tutorial, things that we want to really make people aware of. Working with product managers, because building a game, they're typically producers, so the roles are slightly different. So there's just a variety of different types of roles that you engage with, like switching from that mindset of like, I'm making a very creative project to I'm building technology. So that was another pivot that I think was super critical. 

Still at my time at Amazon, I also made that transition from being individual contributor to a people manager. And that also took a lot of, uh, kind of a mental shift and a change in my own priorities as well as far as like, what, what do I want to focus on today? Is it unblocking the team or is it, am I going to help with this particular task? So it was a lot of like, Okay, it's actually better for me to force multiply the team rather than myself, in those type of scenarios as well. 

And then the last one that kind of comes to mind here at Niantic, this is definitely the largest team I've ever managed, uh, and it's, you know, one of the biggest mobile games in the last decade or so. So it's got its own interesting quirks and things because it was a lightning-in-the-bottle moment that just kind of sparked the phenomenon that is Pokemon Go. So even kind of like learning from like the uniqueness of that has been quite the experience.

Nicole Huesman: I love that. So when you talked a little bit about, gosh, just the diversity of people that you worked with in your different positions, right, in your different roles. Can you talk a little bit about where maybe there were some challenges there or where did you get your energy to do that? What was your method to the madness?

I identify so much with that because that, you know, has been where I've sat in the tech industry, you know, is in working with so many different people, whether it was the engineers, the program managers, right, the community managers, all of these different roles.

Melissa Austin: I think as we've been discovering through even the other people you've interviewed for the series, representation has probably been the biggest theme of like, you know, there's not really a whole lot of women in this industry. So even early in my career, there was less than 10 percent women in the games that I was publishing.

It helps to feel like you belong, your voice is being heard and respected, and especially feeling like you're not alone. And so, there were challenges with just even finding, like, a woman mentor, and for the longest time, I basically just had to find those, like, key allies, key mentors that, even though they were men, they were very supportive in what I want to define with my career path, the explorations, and as a part of trying to fix that representation gap in games and game technology, it helps to be there and be present for other programs like Girls Who Code, STEM events, high school and college, like guest speaking, even this vodcast is super important.

I'll never forget one of the times I volunteered for Girls Who Code at my time at Amazon. We were trying to show them Lumberyard, and I kind of went off script. They had this whole curriculum planned, and I went off script, because I'm like, I don't think they're really enjoying this. I'm going to show them some crazy physics and just, like, copy paste, like, a bunch of, because it was basically a ball in a maze, is what we were trying to, like, teach them a simple game. And it was like, so, Do you want to add a bunch of balls and see what happens? And they were just like, yeah, we could do that. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, hold on. Let me show you. So we kind of went off script and I will never forget. We had a photographer in the room too, and he was able to capture the exact moment that one of the girls I was working with her late, her face just like lit up like so big. This is the biggest smile I had seen. And he caught that photo. And for a little while, AWS was actually using that photo on LinkedIn. I was just like, oh, that's so adorable. I love it so much.

Nicole Huesman: Oh, that is so cool!

Melissa Austin: Just those inspirational moments, it really matters. It really matters.

Nicole Huesman: When you sit, when you turn on, yes, when you can turn on that light for other people. You mentioned earlier on our conversation that your inspiration has been helping people. And I so, I so love that. And I so identify with that. And then two, working in the game industry, right? I mean, that, that industry in particular has lower representation, of diverse folks, diverse genders, women and others. And just to be able to turn a light on like that for other people. Wow. That must've just, you know, I always, I always have thought when you go off script, that kind of, that's when the magic happens, right? Like that's that, that, that human connection.

Melissa Austin: Yeah. That's probably been one of the highlight moments I always think about, like, how do I contribute back when I have moments like that?

Nicole Huesman: Oh gosh. I love that. I absolutely love that. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like for you to shift from being an individual contributor to then managing people? 

Melissa Austin: Yeah. So that, that definitely was an interesting transition for sure. Just because, going from individual contributor where you're just like, Okay, how do I execute on this task? How do I do XYZ thing? Who do I need to talk to? How do I do the pieces and put them together? And from the manager shift, it was very much just like, no, no, no. It's how do I unblock the team so they can execute, so they can figure out the best solutions? How do I become kind of the sounding board for them to throw the ideas out, figure out what makes sense for them to execute on instead of me being like, delegating and, you know, very directive. 

You know, even in management, there's moments where it's like, you do need a little bit more directive versus supportive, but even that had a learning curve of like, Oh, there's different styles of management and you have to learn there's different times when you need that more supportive and just be the sounding board versus like, this person is really struggling. They need that directive guidance. So very much it became indexing on like, how do I bring the best out of others, rather than focusing on like how do I do my best to help other people. That's where I found my superpowers like within my time of helping people as an individual contributor. I've also found that my superpower is helping other people figure out their superpowers.

Nicole Huesman: Where do you think that that comes from? Have you had different mentors who have guided you along the way? Have you had different sponsors, or you mentioned allies? Can you talk a little bit about the role that they have played along your path?

Melissa Austin: Like I said, in the early days of my career, there were very few women that I could lean on as a role model in the games industry. And so, my time at Petroglyph, Oksana was just amazing. She's a wizard as an engineer, and then also as like an engineering manager. And then she eventually became like a vice president at Riot Games for a period of time as well. And so it was just like, amazing to see like, you know, I could also go that route if I wanted to. I don't have to be limited and just like, I'm just an individual contributor doing like whatever it takes to get things done. So she was kind of my initial inspiration as a woman in games for, you know, I can take my path wherever I want. I don't have to be in a box. 

But as far as like my mentors, my allies, a bulk of them were at Amazon just because, you know, I spent a over eight years at Amazon. It was a good chunk of time in my career. Jeremiah Habits was my first like hiring manager, but he was also like just a mentor I leaned on even after he tried different teams at Amazon and was no longer my manager. I would just kind of bounce off of him and be like, Hey, I'm in this weird situation, I don't know what to do. And he's just like, Okay, this is my, my two cents of how you can get some help and who you should talk to and things like that. So he's been like a great sounding board for that. David Chaparino, who was like a great mentor, both from my like technical career aspect, as well as instilling that mindset of like, you want to have other people take over the role that you're doing so you can go find other amazing things that you can do as well. You want to make sure that other people feel like they're in good hands. Amar Mehta was probably the best people manager I've had. And honestly, that's where I emulate a lot of my people management skills from. 

Nicole Huesman: Can you talk a little bit about the traits that you've admired most and that you have brought into your own style of who you are?

Melissa Austin: Yeah, leading with empathy has probably been the biggest proponent for me. Amar was always like a great, like, listener in that regard. Never really tried to force me down one path and was always transparent about like, Hey, you know, if you want to go this route, here's the pros and cons of that. If you go this route, maybe make these considerations. But he never tried to force me down a certain path. And that's something that I was just like, you know what, I like that freedom of being able to just be informed and make the choices. And that's what I try to do for my team now, as well as just like being that support system. Whether that even leads them outside of the team, outside of the company, I want people to succeed regardless of where they're at. And sometimes it's just very clear that it's like, you've kind of outgrown your time here. I think it is ready for, you know, it's time for you to move on. 

So I think having that mentality and just being like, you know, I'm here to help you. I'm not like, the big focus of like, oh no, I have to keep you here because of retention numbers, because of DEI numbers, whatever the case may be. It's very much about like, remember the individual, remember how to support them.

Nicole Huesman: It's just that generosity of spirit that you're, you're seeing them and who they are, what their passions are, and how you can either, you know, pull the best from them and, and have them illuminate their strengths, uh, or like you said, you know, propel them on to other things that they'd love to do so that they are fulfilled as people.

Melissa Austin: Exactly.

Nicole Huesman: I so admire that generosity.

Melissa Austin: Mm hmm.

Nicole Huesman: Because it, you know, it's that doesn't always happen. And, and, you know, I mean, that's, that's a wonderful, that's a wonderful trait to carry with you, uh, and, and to embody. 

Have you had any challenges along the way? You talked about working in a male-dominated field, whether it be technology or gaming. You know, have you had other challenges that you think you've had to navigate through, and how did you do that?

Melissa Austin: The other challenge I think I've run into a lot was being told what to do based on what I was hired for, even though there were other opportunities to help other people, other teams, kind of coming back to that theme of like, you know, how much I like helping other people. And so I kind of struggled with that for a while. I was like, I don't understand why I can't help these other people.

I would end up either sneaking it in or eventually finding a role that let me do that because it's like, No, I don't understand why it's so limited. Especially like, you know, early days of Petroglyph Games, they didn't have the priority to do like the tooling, optimization, kind of speeding up velocity for the team. And so this is something that it's like, Okay, well, I'm going to sneak this in. But I padded the time estimates for like how much time I thought something was going to take to get done, so that way I had the time to actually do the tooling as part of my job. 

And then there was a time at Amazon where it was just like, Oh, well, we don't want you to help this other team too much while they're hiring their own technical artists. You know, they do need the help, but we don't want you to focus on them too much. And so I ended up switching to an entirely different team and role, where they let me do that, where I became a field technical artist, and my job was to support all the game teams that were using the technology, even external game studios that were using the technology, and I got a lot of satisfaction out of that, of being like, no, look, I'm encouraged to actually do this.

And so finding cultures and teams, like my last team at Amazon, my current team here at Niantic, has very much been the culture and mindset of like, you get to kind of define your role and figure out what matters to you and your impact.

Nicole Huesman: And I love that you were able to navigate to things that were fulfilling or have been fulfilling to you, that you not only did you say to yourself, wow, there's so much more that I could be doing, but then wow, kudos to you that you actually then navigated to different positions that would enable you to give that of yourself. That's just, that's wonderful.

Based on all of what you've learned over the years, what insights and advice would you give to, say, your younger self?

Melissa Austin: Yeah, probably the first thing is definitely finding the allies, finding the mentors, even if they are men, because like, they are still very supportive. They have a lot to give. Even if you don't find your own representation at first, there's a lot of people that are out there to help you succeed or want to see that success happen. And so it takes time to find the right allies, the right mentors, because it is a little bit of like, you know, do I get along with this person? Do they understand my perspective? But once you find them, they're worth their weight in gold. And so having those people to lean on and especially the early parts of a career, I think was super invaluable. 

Nicole Huesman: I'm so glad that you brought that up because I myself have had so many wonderful male allies, sponsors, mentors, who have helped me, you know, along the way to, to figure out what I want to do, or to navigate to my next position, or even in the case of really starting the project, She Lights The Way. My husband has been such a wonderful support for me. And so I have all across my years have had wonderful male allies and sponsors to, to really, to, to guide me. So I'm, I'm so glad that you, um, that you brought them into this conversation. 

Melissa, what do you think are either mindsets or skills that you have nurtured in yourself and have found really indispensable to, to cultivate.

Melissa Austin: Oh, this is a good one. Communication has kind of been the biggest piece, both verbally and written. I'm going to borrow a little bit from my time at Amazon, the Amazon leadership principles. Having a backbone was kind of a big one. Finding the courage to be able to push back, whether that's, you know, using data to fight for what's right. 

Being able to take risks and, you know, don't be afraid of being wrong and learning from those lessons. I think that's probably one of the, like, things I've had to unlearn growing up, like, as a, as a child of like, oh, you have to do things right the first time and now it's like, No, no, no. Failing is good because you learn more from that than from like succeeding. 

Nicole Huesman: In those moments where we feel, where we've stepped outside our comfort zone, are the moments where I found have been the moments of greatest growth of where I've learned the most.

Melissa Austin: Yeah. A hundred percent. This actually makes me think of something that I wanted to do. I joined the Amazon Bar Raiser program for interviewing. Meaning that I was a neutral party in all interview loops, regardless of what team it was, whether it was the AWS side or the retail side. I helped hiring managers make the call on if a candidate was going to succeed overall at Amazon, not just a specific team, not just a specific project. And going through that program really helped me kind of push back on people about challenging, like, assumptions they were making, data points they were gathering about, like, but wait, you have this contradictory point over here, so why are you leaning heavily on this side as opposed to, like, analyzing both pieces of data? So this really kind of helped both from my written perspective and my verbal skills.

Nicole Huesman: So you have done so much. You've had these evolutions over time. You've, you know, had zigzags and a-ha moments and done, you know, so many different things. What do you think have been the most rewarding for you?

Melissa Austin: For me, I lean a little bit more into my more recent career of the people management side, and being able to fight for the needs of my team. I had somebody that was like, I'm about to just start a family, my wife and her family, like they are based in this area. So us relocating is going to be really scary and tough. And I was just like, this is a very talented person. I will pull out all the stops to get this exception done, which I was successful in doing. I was very happy about that. Promotions for people. Getting priority for projects that people have pitched, but maybe it's just not as important because it's like more visual focus and not about like numbers or, uh, increasing, you know, daily average users, things like that. And so being able to push back and like fight for what my team wants or needs has been very rewarding for me. 

The biggest thing I think recently, for Pokemon Go, we had this visual overhaul for the map view, the Pokemon counters, and this is something that, you know, the team had wanted, like not just my team in particular, the art team, like a number of other people across Pokemon Go had wanted this for many years, and so it was just one of those things were like, when are we going to do this? Oh, but it never gets prioritized. So we'll never see it happen. And so I saw this window of opportunity within my first year of joining where I'm like, Wait, if we take a breath while we have this little period to just do some research, do some prototyping, pitch that to people, see what happens. And then we kind of use that as like the foundation of like what became like the first Halloween event that had like visual changes in 2022. And then we did another experiment with winter in 2022 and that kind of set the foundation of what we ended up releasing earlier this year.

Nicole Huesman: That is so cool. So, Melissa, as we wrap up, and as we look forward, what are your goals for the future of technical art in gaming, both personally and then for the industry as a whole?

Melissa Austin: So the aspiration I'm working towards for the future of technical art is just reinforcing the importance of utilizing these amazing individuals that are called technical artists to force multiply the teams and projects overall, regardless of where I am. Whether that’s having the patience to be able to implement changes over time, such as establishing like the tech art career ladder. I think these are all like critical steps. It's just something that you have to keep working away at slowly over time and you will reap the rewards of that. So something myself and a group of other technical artists didn't quite get to see a tech art career ladder come to life at Amazon, but I was able to be a part of that here at Niantic and establish a tech art specific career ladder. 

Let's see, for the industry as a whole, I hope that it continues to recognize the opportunities to have people grow both as individual contributors and as people managers, just because each track serves a different and meaningful purpose. Historically before, like it was very much just like, Oh, the lead also manages the people. And that might not be what people want. They might be better suited to just stay as an individual contributor rather than having the split focus of also doing people management. There's really a place for both pieces. 

And I've experienced the difference between somebody that has that, you know, leading with empathy, the compassion, the focus on helping individuals grow versus somebody that was just focused on like, I just have to do this because I, I've been told this is part of my job. And so you feel that. They're impeded from the work that they want to do as an individual, so you're just like, I feel like I'm a burden to you instead of an asset. 

So I just kind of hope that tech art as a whole also continues to evolve and grow considering whether that's, you know, the different tracks that tech art can grow as ICs and managers, and even continue growing as a role because it's, it's constantly evolving. Tech art 10 years ago has a different definition from what tech art is now. There's so many variety of technical artists and specialties that, I just hope it doesn't stop other technical artists from learning and growing their skill sets just like I did in my early stages of like, Hey, I'm just going to do some more tooling because I think that'll help everybody.

Nicole Huesman: Yeah, and I, I love that, just nurturing the, again, people's strengths, right, and, and really making space for their, their gifts and within these different roles and honoring, uh, honoring our, our differences and what we can each bring to, to the proverbial table.

Melissa, wow, what strikes me is, throughout your entire journey, what has consistently and continually spoken to you is helping other people in, in so many different ways. Can you talk a little bit about what She Lights the Way means to you?

Melissa Austin: For sure. I think this kind of reminds me back to, you know, contributing back, building up that reminder that representation matters for people. And so for me, it's just reminding each other as, as women in tech, or females in tech that, you know, we run into, and we work with these amazing people, even our usual day-to-days. And so, you know, passing on those inspirations and lessons learned to each other, so we can keep pushing forward and just building more positive impact, make the industry better than what we originally joined in at. So even if, you know, my story only helps one other person to me, that's worth it because I hope that they can do more for others as a result of that.

Nicole Huesman: Leaving this world a better place than what we found it. And I so agree with you that even if we touch one other person, that's one other person that may have not been touched by what we've done. And, and I so love that, right, creating an impact one person at a time.

Melissa Austin: Mm hmm.

Nicole Huesman: Yeah, I can't thank you enough, Melissa, for spending your time with us today. I have so appreciated your insights and wisdom into the world of tech and really into the world of gaming. I appreciate you being here.

Melissa Austin: Thank you, Nicole. I mean, you're doing amazing work, so thank you for creating this platform.