Jay Vora
Game Developer | Product Manager
Game Developer turned Product Manager with 13 years of experience.
I thrive in the 0 to 1 zone; where problems are complex, timelines are tight, and smart innovative solutions matter the most.
Jack of all trades, master of some
Work Experience
Freelance
Freelancing as a Product Consultant for 2 gaming startups
Consultant
Sept 2025 — Present- Stealth Gaming Startup: Roadmap planning and strategy ownership to help founders achieve PMF, by prioritizing features with tight deadlines and a small team.
- PlayShifu: Product Consultant at PlayShifu driving ideation, research, and strategy for a new phygital platform to define product vision and the next milestone for the company. Increased activation rate from 55% to 80% across all existing products.
TerraByte Inc
A startup that is developing a metaverse and a gaming platform for children and Gen Z users. They are focused on building immersive 3D social, learning, and gaming platforms, as well as a game engine called "Terra Studio" that enables creators to build and deploy games instantly.
Associate Director - Product & Tech (Founding Team Member)
Mar 2023 — Sept 2025- Terra Studio: Launched a game maker tool to create high fidelity 3D games for Terra Platform, which cut down the development time by 70%. This product helped Terra secure $4M in seed funding from top US and Indian VCs including a16z. Developed proprietary compiler for C# code over the air, resulting in a faster live-ops pipeline.
- 3D R&D Pipeline: Led the R&D pipeline for games that resulted in running 3D games at 30+ fps on low-end devices, resulting in a broader audience reach. Decreased load times by 90% by optimizing 3D assets using a custom gltf parser and automated pipelines.
- Game Retention: Helped game pods by building features and scalable systems that increased D1 retention to 45% (Top 10% of industry).
- Team building & Organizational strategy: Played a key leadership role in pivoting the company from Playshifu to Terra. Worked closely with the core team to establish Terra's vision, mission and strategy. Hired and built new teams across engineers, designers, and product managers to accelerate Terra’s growth.
PlayShifu
A leading educational toy company that creates "phygital" (physical and digital) learning experiences for children aged 4-12
Lead Developer turned Associate Product Director
Nov 2017 — Mar 2023- Award winning Products: Led production and development of Orboot Earth, winner of multiple Toy Awards, with more than 1M users. Led production of Tacto, a phygital gaming platform, finalist of Toy of the Year award in 2022.
- Game Production: Developed and released 10+ games across Orboot, Plugo, and Tacto which resulted in increasing daily engagement to 60+ minutes.
- Funding Rounds: Expanded Orboot product line to Orboot Earth, Dinos, and Mars which helped PlayShifu raise $11.5M Series-A. Led R&D and product for Tacto which helped PlayShifu raise $17M Series-B.
- PLG: Conceptualized and led development of high-impact features that helped PlayShifu reduce CPI by selling more products via the apps.
DigiFury Solutions
A media company working on creating content for other companies
Lead Game Developer
Apr 2016 — Oct 2017- 10M Downloads: Led development of PNB Metlife Badminton 3D that was downloaded 10M+ times with 10% D7 retention (Top 10% of industry).
- Client Projects: Made Games and Products for external partners - Aprilia, The Souled Store, EsselWorld, PNBMetlife, and History TV, and released them on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and VR devices.
Pescados Software India
A software company hired by Real Madrid FC to create their virtual world
Senior Game Developer
Jan 2015 — Jul 2015- Virtual Worlds: Developed and released the official virtual world for Real Madrid F.C.
IndusGeeks Inc.
An award-winning EdTech company that specializes in creating game-based learning, simulation-based training, and gamification solutions for corporate training and education. They transform traditional e-learning content into interactive, immersive, and narrative-driven experiences.
Senior Game Developer
Jun 2012 — Aug 2014- Medical Simulations: Worked on core system architecture for medical simulation platforms, contributing to realistic training solutions
- Virtual Worlds: Developed 3D Virtual Worlds that ran on browsers using Flash Action Script 3.0.
Core Competencies
- Game Development (3D and 2D)
- Game Production
- Game Design
- Product Management
- Product Lifecycle Ownership
- Team Leadership
- Phygital Product Design
- Analytical Decision Making
- Global Product Localization
- MVP Development & Market Validation
- Strong Communication
- Mentoring & Team Building
- UI/UX
- Wireframing
Tools & Languages
- Unity3D
- C#
- Git
- Figma
- Notion
- Mixpanel
- Google Analytics
- OneSignal
- Jira
- Postman
- Miro
- AWS
- GCP
- C++
- Javascript
- React
- TailwindCSS
- Astro
Featured Projects
Terra Studio
A game-maker studio tool designed for both game designers and developers, enabling them to create and deploy immersive 3D experiences directly to the Terra Platform
About Me
Hi, I'm Jay Vora, a Game Developer turned Product Manager with 13+ years of experience in the gaming industry, specializing in game development and game production. I've led the production cycles for end-to-end games, including developing custom game engines, game tools, and live-ops pipelines that resulted in 45%+ D1 retention. I've worked with early stage startups for 10+ years helping them achieve Product/Market Fit and secure multiple rounds of funding.
