Hello, I'm Rae.

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• Itch.io

Hey, nice to meet you! I go by Rae or Rachel (either one works, truly), and I am an under(tale)graduate Honors Dean's List student at Northeastern majoring in Combined Computer Science & Music with a Concentration in Music Technology.

Fun fact: I have perfect pitch! (Though absolute pitch is the more scientifically correct term.)

One of the primary reasons I chose this path is for the intersections between art and technology, particularly for video games. I figured that video games need programming & they need music; what better major to pursue? I'm also focused on the overall creative applications of programming and software in general, outside of gaming.

There are a couple of initial factors that have led me to being where I am now. First, all the way back in middle school, I realized that computer science had creative power, power that could send very strong messages. 14-yr old me was making simple JavaScript Choose-Your-Path games using browser pop-ups, to advocate against animal cruelty. Second, some of my earliest memories I can recall revolve around video games. I remember sitting in our old house's dusty basement and watching my dad strike the final blow into Ganondorf's chest in Twilight Princess. I remember my sisters and I waking up early in the morning just to play Minecraft together. I remember always being on this spelling and typing game that I could not stop playing, ending up with me now with my accidental peak typing speed of 144 WPM (according to monkeytype.com). Third, the only times in my childhood when I felt like I was flying were when I was either listening to any Legend of Zelda OST or playing it on the piano. In the present day, my listening repertoire has extended to so many other game soundtracks as well.

This is all to say that this part of why I'm in the gaming industry, and why I chose to pursue this major, since it gives me experience with multiple sectors of what a video game needs.

I'm currently working on a breakcore track for an NU alumni's upcoming indie video game, so stay tuned for that. I'm also currently a Senior Developer (& upcoming Project Lead) for Scout Northeastern. As a Senior Developer, I've led development for a client website (The Student Kitchen) using HTML, CSS, & JavaScript, by translating design prototypes into functional, production-ready features. I've also been mentoring and upskilling 2 Junior Developers through code reviews and pair programming, promoting shared learning and accountability within the team. We also implemented and maintained a comprehensive CI/CD pipeline with a full testing suite (unit, integration, E2E) throughout development.

Previously, I had the opportunity to intern at Black Soup GmbH in Berlin as a Software Engineering & Marketing Co-Op/Intern, where I gained hands-on experience in video game marketing, influencer outreach, media planning, and campaign execution. I led 4 organic marketing campaigns for video game titles (Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, Memoriapolis, Palia, Rooftops & Alleys), executing influencer outreach and digital strategy that collectively garnered over 5M impressions and 250K engagements across social platforms. Furthermore, I acted as a primary point of contact for clients (KRAFTON, Radical Theory, Riot Games, Singularity 6). A very fun part of the job involved managing and coordinating with content creators to facilitate content creation, and I directly contributed to driving over 1M combined views on campaign-related content. I also engineered Google Apps Scripts to automate media planning and reporting, and contributed to designing a centralized campaign database. One of my favorite parts involved getting to know the incredible creators Vasily & Nat of the game PEPPERED. I got to proofread some of the script for the game, and seeing their love and drive for the project was genuinely inspiring.

In the near future, I'd love to get more hands-on experience and exposure with specifically video game programming.

I'm also delving deeper into my interest in building practical, user-centric software and taking full ownership of projects from concept through deployment. Developing web applications or software tools that enable people to improve their lives or their impact on the planet is something that got me into computer science initially. You can see an example of this in my Garment Genie browser extension, NUCircle, and more, found on this website's portfolio page.

Thanks for visiting my website. Feel free to reach out to hear about my projects, experiences, personal take on the ever-so-complicated Legend of Zelda timeline, or to test my perfect pitch capacity. Let me know if you find the hidden treasure on this site! (Though it's inaccessible on mobile devices.)