Meta 2019–2022
I led design as Horizon grew from a prototype into the foundation for Meta’s social VR products.
The starting point
I joined Horizon to lead Creator Tools and found a product assembled from loosely connected concepts.
The organization was split between an authored, AAA-style experience and a UGC toolset for building worlds from scratch entirely in headset. Both strategies were consuming the roadmap, but the product needed a clear center.
Two months in, we learned Horizon would be announced at OC6. We had to deliver a credible reveal while setting the long-term direction. With my product counterpart, I helped align the organization around UGC and Horizon’s role as a creator platform.
My scope After my first year, I was promoted to Head of Design for Horizon. I led a design organization of around 30 people, responsible for all product strategy and design decisions across the organization. Horizon was a large cross-functional effort; this case focuses on the work I led and contributed to directly.
The story
That decision retired significant work and rewrote roadmaps, but it finally gave the organization a clear product direction.
01 / Creator Tools
I co-led the decision to make creation central to Horizon. World Builder became the shared toolset for everyone, from internal teams and external partners to players building worlds of their own.
02 / Studio breadth
First- and third-party teams used World Builder to create game shows, sports games, escape rooms, arcade games, and more. Shipping that range forced the tools to improve, raised the quality bar, and leveled up the platform for all players.
03 / Arena Clash
Prototype
The early prototype gave the team a place to test projectile mechanics and clarify gaps in the creator tools.
Arena Clash
I helped drive Arena Clash, one of our most successful early titles. The team built and shipped it with the exact same tools available to public creators.
After my tenure
Super Rumble followed Arena Clash after my tenure and shows how much the fidelity of Horizon worlds advanced.
04 / Social systems
As Horizon shipped to the public, retention heavily depended on people finding one another and quickly getting into something fun. Empty worlds made Horizon feel dead. We shipped group travel, built a playful shared lobby where every player landed, and introduced mini-games with built-in matchmaking to keep Horizon buzzing. We also spent months developing robust VR-native systems for personal safety and reporting in this new embodied world.
05 / UI overhaul
Horizon was heading toward public release with a UI system that fell far below the product’s quality bar. The problem went beyond design: the framework was far too resource-intensive for VR. Dropped frames mean nauseous users. The system was a dead end.
I fought for a complete overhaul and a migration to React VR. The team had a clear mandate but immense time pressure because the existing framework was holding up launch. In under six weeks, we rebuilt it from scratch and established Horizon’s first proper design system.
The launch
Meta promotional film, 1:04
Outcomes & learning
Unified the competing product pillars around UGC and made Horizon’s creator tools the foundation for every world, democratizing creation.
The Horizon team established shared foundations for avatars, UI, safety, spatial navigation, and entertainment experiences across Meta’s XR products. Horizon also became the parent brand for the company’s XR portfolio.
Horizon’s long-term advantage wasn’t operating as a game studio; it was enabling a creator ecosystem. Our role was to build the tools, establish what was possible, and then make room for creators to take the platform far beyond what we could build ourselves. Done right, UGC delivers a breadth of content no internal studio can match.
