Shaun Hewitt

At the age of 11 Shaun was already showing a keen interest in all things computer related, starting out on a commodore Vic 20 which his parents bought for him, Shaun spent many long hours tapping in programs from magazines and poking around their internals to see what he could learn.

Shaun studied at the University of Sunderland where he graduated in Micro-Electronics and Digital Systems Engineering. He later went on to accept an R&D post studying Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at The University of the West of England where most of his time was spent designing and constructing embedded systems, programming micro-controllers and generally playing with expensive toys.

Up to this point Shaun’s only contact with the games industry was the large number of hours he had spent playing games on his PS2 and wishing that he could make games for a living. Between academics Shaun had already put in 5 years of professional software development working on various business applications, remote backup systems, document management/scanning and workflow systems – but never games. Fortunately that was to change and being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time meant a whole new career direction was about to present itself.

Shaun joined Pivotal Games in December 2000 as a Software Engineer developing the Network code for Conflict: Desert Storm and while his main role within the company has always been specialising in Network programming Shaun managed to moonlight in several other areas applying his varied skills to many areas of game development.

Shaun says, “Becoming part of the games industry was the best move I have ever made. Knowing that when I am gone there will be a wake of great games left behind me and being part of a great team I can say that we have truly made our mark on the world.”