Brandon Figueroa CSM · ISTQB
I’m Brandon, or Figgy. A release manager and producer who connects engineering, QA, and live operations so teams know what is shipping, what is ready, and what needs a decision.
Currently: Release Manager II · Riot Games · VALORANT
01 / Selected work
From encounter testing to live releases, my work sits where quality, engineering, and production meet.
Release Manager II
Coordinate scheduled and urgent releases across engineering, QA, live operations, and regional partners. Maintain readiness, sequencing, dependency visibility, deployment execution, and post release validation.
Delivery focus Keep the launch sequence and validation work visible across teams before a change reaches players.
Release Manager
Coordinated biweekly Quest releases and supporting mobile, backend, web, Studio, and internal tool delivery from planning through production monitoring.
Contribution Led defect triage with Bugsnag and Jira, improved release visibility, and brought dependencies and defect severity into readiness decisions.
Read the process proposal
Producer
Coordinated live service feature delivery across product, engineering, design, QA, and distributed teams.
Contribution Improved tracking of feature progress and dependencies, with clearer communication between distributed teams.
Associate Producer
Supported development milestones across engineering, design, and QA while tracking feature progress, priorities, dependencies, build validation, and readiness.
Contribution Improved coordination between engineering and design so milestone work, dependencies, and timelines stayed visible.
QA/UX Associate Test Analyst · Encounters
Tested live service gameplay, encounters, UX, and regression workflows. Documented critical defects, escalated release risks, and worked with developers to validate fixes.
Contribution Strengthened issue tracking and QA processes, with clear reproduction evidence and verification of fixes.
Producer
Produced concurrent XR training programs from planning through delivery across engineering, design, art, QA, and enterprise client teams.
Contribution Clarified execution priorities and improved visibility into progress, dependencies, and risks across active workstreams.
Product imagery identifies the games and experiences. It does not imply credit for a particular expansion, season, or pictured asset. Image credits
02 / Work samples
Public reconstructions of release planning and technical communication, plus a working automation demo. These are not exports of company documents.
01 · Release planning sample
The brief brings scope, test evidence, dependencies, and recovery readiness together. It gives the team a specific next action without hiding uncertainty behind a green status.
Reconstructed example · fictional release and statuses
Download the writing sampleThe candidate is ready for a decision review, but not for deployment. Configuration validation remains open. Preserve the test window and resolve the dependency before confirming the launch.
| Check | Evidence | Next action |
|---|---|---|
| Build identity | Candidate recorded | Keep the tested build pinned |
| QA coverage | Targeted tests complete | Attach the final report |
| Configuration | Validation pending | Engineering owner confirms test coverage |
| Recovery | Plan reviewed | Confirm the rollback owner is available |
Decision record: carry the remaining risk, owner, and next checkpoint into the release review.
02 · Technical writing sample
My QA background shapes how I write a handoff: identify the exact build, explain what changed, name the affected behavior, and make the expected evidence explicit.
Reconstructed excerpt · no internal identifiers
Download the full excerptDo not carry a previous test result forward as proof for a changed build. Record what remains valid and what must be tested again.
03 · Process improvement proposal
At Supernatural, I identified a recurring planning gap: release tickets alone did not always explain the full A/B test and migration impact. Chasing those details after testing began created avoidable uncertainty.
I explored a lightweight intake that would bring owners, affected cohorts, configuration changes, and special test needs into one review before the release branch was cut.
Observed problem · proposed solution, not a claimed rollout
Download the process proposalQA could discover important test conditions after its coverage plan was already underway.
Feature owner → affected cohorts → configuration → dependencies → test instructions → QA acknowledgment.
Measure late disclosures, unplanned retests, and missing ownership during a pilot. Adoption and improvement would need to be demonstrated, not assumed.
04 · Working automation demo
This small preflight validator turns a release manifest into a list of missing prerequisites and a status summary. Try a clean candidate, a late change, or an incomplete handoff.
Built for this portfolio with AI assistance. Synthetic data only. Not an employer production system.
Download the JavaScript sourceExample: hold for review
A change landed after QA completed. The validator flags the missing retest and keeps the candidate on hold.
Synthetic sample: a tested build with a late change and incomplete retest.
All checks run in your browser. No company systems are connected. A passing check never authorizes a deployment.
03 / Delivery discipline
Reliable delivery starts before release day. I focus on the decisions that preserve testing time, expose dependencies, and keep teams from discovering critical work at the last minute.
Connect each dependency and milestone to a responsible owner. Review readiness early enough for teams to act.
Translate defects into player impact, test evidence, options, and an explicit decision. Keep the rationale with the release.
Review late scope against the time needed to build, test, and recover. Escalate the tradeoff before making a promise.
Carry repeat blockers into process changes. Use automation for repeatable checks and measure whether the change actually helps.
04 / Behind the work
I started in quality assurance. That experience still shapes the questions I ask: what changed, who could be affected, and what evidence do we need before we ship?
I’m a US Army veteran, a producer, and a player based in Irvine. I’ve worked across games, XR, and live software, and I’m studying software engineering to keep building my technical range.
Certified ScrumMaster · ISTQB CTFL
05 / Experience
Release Manager II · VALORANT
Release Manager · Supernatural
Producer · Unreal Engine XR
Producer · Ingress
Associate Producer · Forza Motorsport
QA/UX Associate Test Analyst · World of Warcraft
Selected toolkit
06 / Next release
I am open to release management, game production, technical program management, quality leadership, and live operations opportunities.
Personal photographs supplied by Brandon Figueroa. Promotional artwork belongs to its respective rights holders. This is an independent personal portfolio, not an official company site or an endorsement.
Work samples are newly written, sanitized reconstructions. The automation is a portfolio demonstration. No proprietary documents, internal URLs, employee contact details, production configuration, or credentials are published.
The control-room background is an AI-generated illustration.
