Tangle brings joy to remote work culture

Alex Schwartz

Founder / CEO / Janitor

Fun Fact

Alex was a professional juggler at one point in his life, depending on your definition of professional.

Bio

Alex Schwartz is the award-winning, 30 Under 30 founder and CEO of absurd:joy, bringing joy to remote communication with the collaborative team platform Tangle. Previously, Alex was Founder and CEO of video game studio Owlchemy Labs, creators of #1 hit virtual reality titles Job Simulator and Rick and Morty VR, acquired by Google in 2017. Outside of his 9-5, he angel invests, advises large gaming/tech orgs, and runs various developer communities. In the spare time that’s left over, he works diligently to hone his craft of smoking meats.

Cy Wise

Founder / COO / Raccoon

Fun Fact

Cy’s first job was at a small, independent farm making chèvre

Bio

With 15+ years of games industry tenure, Cy has most recently helped to run and grow VR game studio Owlchemy Labs, creators of award winning Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: VR. Her expertise spans interaction design, human-centric play, and building / maintaining culture within organizations and communities. When left unattended, she also writes tons of jokes and dialog for all of her projects. Before remote collaboration rocked her world, she survived AAA MMO game development cycles mostly unscathed. Emerging somehow with her unfettered positivity intact, she still fervently believes in joy and play, and can be seen in the wild gesturing enthusiastically about the future.

Andy Moore

CTO / Techromancer

Fun Fact

Andy once slipped on a banana peel and accidentally obtained a commercial pilot license.

Bio

Andy has been a software company executive since 1998, focusing his skills on rapid-prototype production, team leadership, and startup ecosystems. Previously, Andy was CEO of the VR art-gallery The Museum of Other Realities, CEO of Radial Games, and CEO of Disco Software. When not running the business end of things, Andy doubled as lead engineer and software designer on hundreds of projects — from B2B SaaS software, to award-winning video games, all the way down to fun self-published art games.

Lyndsey Gallant

CCO / Heart Director

Fun Fact

I always draw cute lil faces on my bananas. :>

Bio

With 12+ years as a triple-threat Art Director, Concept Artist & UI/UX Expert across many industries, Lynds is headin’ up the visual magic of Tangle as absurd:joy’s CCO & Art Director. Lynds loves yoga, running, karaoke, and her sweet lil bunny, Pica.

Scott Stephan

VP of Product

Fun Fact

Scottie lived in South Korea for 2 years where he taught English to toddlers. He’s also never been the first Scott at any company he’s ever worked for.

Bio

Occasional woodworker, full-time Dad, sometimes VP of Product. Scottie took the long way into the software industry, beginning his career as an employee of an elevator repair union and then gourmet peanut butter salesman before landing at EdTech startup GameDesk in 2011. (There’s an entire missing saga in there where he taught English to elementary school kids in South Korea, but we’ve got a word count to hit here) Since then he’s gotten his MFA in Interactive Media from USC’s first-of-its-kind IMGD and shipped launch titles for numerous VR platforms (Samsung Gear, Vive, Oculus Touch) at WEVR as Project Lead on theBlu and Senior Technical Designer on Jon Favreau’s Gnomes and Goblins. He then moved to 20th Century Fox to help lead FoxNext’s VR division, shipping a number of cross-plat VR titles tied to Fox IP (Predator, Kingsman, Planet of the Apes, Alien). After picking up and moving to Austin, TX in 2019 he was a Producer on Superbrothers’ Jett: The Far Shore, then Senior Producer at award-winning XR agency Subvrsive where he worked with clients like Amazon, Ford and the Austin Opera. In 2021 he joined absurd:joy fulltime as their VP of Product, happily giving up his commute to bring more joy to remote work!

Noreen Rana

Principal UX Designer

Fun Fact

Noreen’s cat Lilo screamed in almost every meeting while working on Far Cry 6, that she has her own credit in the game as Scream Baby.

Bio

Noreen is a 12+ year video game industry veteran having worked on multiple mobile, independent and AAA titles across her career. Originally trained as an illustrator, Noreen has also worked with comic artists and independent developers as an artist and colourist. During her career, Noreen has acquired several cats, watched Sister Act 1 & 2 more times than she can remember and will go out of her way to travel many kilometers for only the best mangoes. Now her passion lies in ensuring that remote work can be enjoyable, healthy, and fun. And she likes to make her cats applause on camera.

Scott “Bones” Doxey

Web Engineer

Fun Fact

I once gave a talk at a lecture party about how to make the Chewbacca voice.

Bio

Scott is a full-stack web developer who loves to contribute to open source projects, most of which are his own and that he doesn’t don’t promote or talk about. He also participates in game jams and hackathons (more so in the “before times”). He doesn’t have typical game development experience but rather more product-based applications. Most recently, he worked on a medical app that was released for multiple VR headsets.

Keenan Woodall

Mid Engineer / Juice Engineer

Fun Fact

Keenan is a compulsive whistler, avid walker and frame-rate enthusiast.

Bio

a.k.a “Beans,” he stumbled into programming in high school and continued self educating after graduation while rolling silverware in Nashville. In his free time Keenan experimented with many things from compute shaders to procedural animation, and got exposed to the magical world of computer artistry. By sharing his work on Twitter and releasing a free real-time mesh animation tool called Deform, he was able to get his foot in the door and meet cool people like the folks at absurd:joy!

Anne-Elise Chung

Network Engineer

Fun Fact

Anne-Elise was born in France and grew up in California. She enjoys eating stinky foods such as cheese and durian (not at the same time though). Please send her comic recommendations!

Bio

Anne-Elise works on code that helps people see the same things at the same time for Tangle! Before working on Tangle, she began her career in architecture where she designed physical spaces, then pivoted to designing digital spaces as a UX designer and XR prototyper. Because of her multifaceted work experience, Anne-Elise loves to help others who are at a career crossroads. She also loves to learn, read comics, rock climb, and embark on culinary adventures!

John Harris

Network Engineer / Intertube Wrangler

Fun Fact

Favourite nap spot is Barren Hill Peak south of Howth, Ireland

Bio

Former roboticist and HCI academic. Lifelong fan of games play. Always looking for ways to to use technology to bring people closer together.

Tejas Shroff

Implementation Engineer

Fun Fact

A professional dinosaur wrangler who loves to make homemade ice cream, learn new forms of dance, and develop ultra cool games in his free time!

Bio

Hey, I’m Tejas! I’m a business major turned programmer that loves working with teams to create products for general audiences. After embracing the wacky, wonderful world of VR, I helped develop several VR gaming projects, one of which received an Oculus Launchpad grant in 2018. This recognition allowed me to work with a small, nimble team at XPO Logistics to develop enterprise-level marketing and training applications. This experience helped me to strengthen my coding skills, and understand the soft skills needed to collaborate with different teams, stakeholders, and C-level executives. Also, I learned how important UX is to the development process! Like, it’s really important!! My current time at absurd:joy has been amazing, and feels like a wonderful intersection of my enjoyment in creating games with the mindset of developing an enterprise software product. I can’t wait to continue this journey with the team and share Tangle with the rest of the world!

Nikola Odic

Senior Artist

Fun Fact

Bio

Britt Kolar

Senior UI Artist / Chicken Tender

Fun Fact

Britt got slimed on TV at Nickelodeon studios in the 90s.

Bio

Britt is a design-y illustrator who loves working on quirky projects. They have over 10 years of experience designing and illustrating for big tech brands. Britt’s favorite thing about Tangle is helping users be excited for remote work and not have to deal with boring, awkward meetings in corporate chat rooms.

Paul Pedevillano

Fractional CFO

Fun Fact

I waited until I was 65 to get my first earring.

Bio

Entrepreneurial CFO, Several IPOs, ex VP BusDev, VP Manufacturing, Interim CEO of a public company.

Kendra Wilson

People Ops

Fun Fact

If I am not working you can probably find me swimming (or drinking coffee)!

Bio

15+ year Global People Operations professional that really does love making company culture and people happy and productive! Kendra has an MA in HR Management and has worked as a consultant with Fortune 500 to startups. Give her the tough things and as she will work through it and come up with a solution and policy for it! Compliance is her jam. She is married and has 2 children and 2 dogs living the rural WFH life!

Christine Brual

QA Lead

Fun Fact

After about 20 years, I finally got my black belt in karate!

Bio

Bringing a bunch of experience from games, software and television to my position as QA lead at Tangle. Enjoy playing games, axe-throwing, and playing with my cats.

Rick Armstrong

Director of Product Marketing

Fun Fact

Rick is ambidextrous, which really helps when drumming.

Bio

An adventurer, rock climber, rescue scuba diver, dog lover, backpacker, and former motorcyclist, Rick believes that travel is life’s best teacher and has a zest for learning cultures and experiencing the moment. Originally from Arkansas, Rick started his 18 year tech marketing career after college and grad school in his home state, migrated west, spent 12 years in the San Francisco tech scene, and is now loving the outdoors of the Pacific Northwest. From fortune 100 companies to 30 person startups, his marketing experience spans across games, mobile, Saas platforms, and immersive technologies, with expertise including product marketing, digital, marketing communications, branding, and demand generation. Most recently, he led product marketing for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Game Tech services, as well as lead marketer for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Mac and Graphics instances. Prior to AWS, he was one of the original PMM hires at the unicorn Unity Technologies before its IPO in 2020. While at Unity, he drove product marketing initiatives for mobile games and emerging industrial industries (architecture, engineering, construction) across global teams. Earlier in his career, he also spent time at mobile game publishers such as Glu Mobile, and began his career in brand marketing at Alltel Wireless prior to its Verizon acquisition. In 2022 he joined absurd:joy as Director of Product Marketing, and looks forward to creating narratives, building storylines, and taking amazing services to market that will take remote work collaboration to the next level.

Dan Wilson

Lead Engineer

Fun Fact

I was an actual “Rocket Surgeon”, while in the Navy working on Nuclear Weapons.

Bio

25+ years experience making games and software. Shipped many titles, including games, educational software and cybersecurity software. Loves to make things come to life. Enjoys video games and seahawks football.

Valerie Kolomiets

Lead Producer

Fun Fact

Valerie writes poems and songs (both, in English and Russian), plays guitar, and loves drawing, painting, and creating digital art. Also, Valerie once played Curious George in a KQED TV children’s show episode. The show needed a short person who could fit into the costume, and her friend, who gave her that gig, was too tall.

Bio

A multidisciplinary digital producer and a digital nomad, Valerie loves learning, traveling, and gaining new skills and experiences. She was born in the Far East of Russia and lived in Eastern Europe before moving to the USA. Being both creative and analytical (ish…), she got a Bachelor’s in Marketing and an MFA in 3D Animation, which translated into 15+ years of professional experience in several cross-functional areas of digital production. During her career, Valerie built and managed a web content department, led SEO and conversion rate optimization initiatives, launched landing pages and websites, managed 3D and VR creative assets production for brands like Adobe, Microsoft, Intel, and Dupont, and co-produced an award-winning 3D animated short film “Metro6”. As a person who moves around a lot and has been working with and as a part of distributed teams for 7+ years, Valerie is very excited to join Tangle in creating an innovative and intuitive way to collaborate remotely. Her current home base is in California.

Afeez Nosiru

DevOps Engineer

Fun Fact

Bio

I’m Afeez, and I’m joining the DevOps team here at Tangle. Prior to joining Tangle, I worked at Homesite as an Infrastructure/DevOps Engineer. I enjoy playing soccer and running, and I also really love traveling to new places, especially places with a rich history. I’m looking forward to improve the already excellent Collection results, in the Tangle way: with empathy and respect.

Lacey Maloch

Community Engagement Manager

Fun Fact

Lacey has four rescue pets all named after food. Lemon, Pickles, Eggs and Squid.

Bio

With experience in product marketing, content strategy, and graphic design, Lacey comes packed with insights to push forward. As a cozy gamer and avid reader, Lacey uses her approach of storytelling to help drive engagement from a user perspective. In her spare time Lacey uses her photography skills to help get rescue pets adopted.

Jenn Harrison – Contractor

QA Tester / Assistant

Fun Fact

Jenn enjoys illustrating concept art and working on her Japanese. She often checks empty boxes for surprise pepperoni pizza.

Bio

Jenn has 10+ years of experience working in web, mobile and graphic design, UI/UX design, project and feature planning as a strategist/analyst as well as managing team operations. She’s worked alongside many awesome teams filled with great people; from local indie game studios to large international brands and agencies. She’s passionate about building fun and exciting experiences across digital platforms, and is always looking to learn new things all the time!

Stephen Gray – Contractor

Engineer

Fun Fact

Stephen has 3 cats: One who always wants to play fetch, one who never stops purring, and one who never stops yelling.

Bio

A software developer with 20+ years in the virtual reality, console gaming, and mobile industries, Stephen can often be found in the code mines working on getting things running behind the scenes. While he used to spend far too much of his spare time in front of a screen playing video games, he now spends far too much of his spare time in front of a screen editing photos he’s taken.