Aliyaan Zulfiqar

Hi, my name is

Aliyaan.

I like to build things.

I am a passionate and versatile developer with a keen interest in various software disciplines. My primary enthusiasm lies in low-level graphics programming, and I enjoy creating games in my spare time. Outside of software, my biggest passions lie with creating music and mastering classic fighting games.

Co-founder of Trajectile Interactive. Nominated for Outstanding TIGA Postgraduate of the Year and Best Student Game 2025 for the TIGA UK Games Education Awards 2025.

My CV

Projects

Native PS5 SDK C++ Propietary Game Engine 3D Game

Racecar Crashers

My educational (artistic) magnum opus! Won ‘Best in Year’ award at the SHU End of Year Showcase, nominated for Best Student Game 2025 for the TIGA UK Games Education Awards, and soon to be published on the PS5 Store! Built from scratch on the native PS5 SDK in an engine architected by yours truly.

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C++ DirectX 12 HLSL Compute NVIDIA 3D Rendering Open Source Research

Master's Dissertation - Real-Time Upscaling Analyser

My educational (academic) magnum opus! I utilised the NVIDIA NGX SDK to implement DLSS in DirectX 12. I recieved an exceptional/distinction First grade for my work, and I am looking to get the paper published soon.

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C++ DirectX 123 HLSL PBR Lighting 3D Rendering Propietary Game Engine Research

Physically Based Rendering - Real-time BRDF Analyser

A research project that delved deep into the Cook-Torrance microfacet lighting model, comparing it to traditional Blinn-Phong lighting across multiple scenes, allowing users to switch between the two models in real-time!

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C++ Vulkan GLSL Compute GPGPU 2D Rendering Propietary Game Engine Parallel Optimisation Physics Simulation

Parallel Programming - Vulkan & Compute (GPGPU)

Cohesion-based collision system creating a unique snowflake particle system running entirely in parallel via compute shaders! Running inside a propietary Vulkan engine, my solution is capable of rendering and updating 8192 particles with an average frame time of 4.99ms (~200 FPS) on the GPU!

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C++ Vulkan GLSL SIMD GPGPU 2D Rendering Propietary Game Engine Parallel Optimisation Physics Simulation

Parallel Programming - Vulkan & SIMD

Leveraging the power of SIMD and Data-Oriented design, this application is capable of rendering 500,000 particles at ~75 FPS. Running inside a propietary Vulkan engine written by a senior lecturer from scratch, and modified by yours truly.

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C++ DirectX 2D Rendering Research Parallel Optimisation Physics Simulation

Multi-threaded & Pooled Particle System

This is an application that was designed for an investigation into multi-threading methods and efficient pooling for threads and particles. It also supports a neat physics simulation with an implementation of circle-circle collision.

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C++ DirectX 11 DirectXTK 2D Game Propietary Game Engine

Slippery Samurai

This is a megaman-esque endless runner created using my first game engine. The game is 2D, but the engine is capable of 3D rendering, which is demonstrated on the splash screen.

Demo View in Gallery

C++ Unreal 3D Game Research Inworld AI

Unreal Stealth - Inworld API Research

This short game was developed as a software artefact as part of a research module in my bachelor’s year at university. The short demo sports a plethora of features - enemy patrolling, throwable distractionsm gradual detection via sight sense, sound sense that could detect loud player actions such as running and jumping, dynamic takedowns utilising motion warping and a custom shader to highlight interactables in the world.

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C++ Unreal 3D Game Technical Art

Tempus: Land of Ruin

Group project made for the 2nd year of university. I wrote most of the game in C++, with custom level streaming functionality to implement a time-travel mechanic where you could instantly swap between worlds. I also created many particle effects using Niagara.

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C# Unity 2D Game

Juice Jam

This is a little co-op puzzle game developed in 10 hours for a university game jam. The theme was ‘Teamwork’, and both players have to work together to find a solution from a grid of fruit!

Demo

C# Unity 3D Game

Robobit

This is a cool twin-stick survival shooter, with a fancy combo system, interesting power-ups, and a unique UI display system. The game also won a prize at the end of year showcase.

Demo View in Gallery

C++ SFML 2D Game

Classic Snake

My first game in C++. Built using SFML in the first year of university. Please find a video demo for all games in the gallery section, along with more info!

Demo View in Gallery

Hugo HTML Javascript Google Firebase TOML Bootstrap CSS

This website!

This site was built using Hugo, utilising many advanced libraries and features such as templates, partials and pagination - effectively turning my web dev workflow into a game engine of its own! After having recently finished a web-based internship, I thought it’d be good to dive in and build myself a professional portfolio from the ground up, forgoing my previous portfolio that was created with Wix. Blog post with more details coming soon!

Experience

Autodesk
Sheffield Hallam

Software Engineer, Intern - Autodesk

May 2022 - June 2023

Autodesk Construction Cloud

My primary responsibility was QA Automation, with a particular focus on Cypress. This was used to improve the Autodesk Construction Cloud(ACC) software, linked above. The goal was to keep visibility on the quality of ACC as the rate of development increased, ensuring that all code changes were robustly tested for regressions.

I also contributed to CI/CD of the ACC app, by getting my test suite integrated in the build pipeline, with the goal of creating a quality gate for all code in the project moving forward. In order to get the point of integration, I had to lead meetings and coach senior engineers to improve thinking around software quality and garner confidence and buy-in from them of the benefits such a significant CI change would bring.

I was given increased responsibilities on multiple occasions, acting as the manager for our team when my own manager was away, even to the extent of assigning tasks to, and reviewing subsequent PRs with, experienced senior engineers.

Student Mentor and Ambassador - Sheffield Hallam

Sep 2023 - Present

I am currently working part-time at the university as a student mentor and ambassador. As ambassador I help run open days for the Uni, specifically helping my course leader setup for their talks and workshop, as well as providing continuous support throughout the duration of the workshop.

As a mentor, I run both one-to-one mentoring sessions, with first and second year students in the Computing department, as well as running a weekly coding workshop for the entire department every other Monday. I also helped run a weekly coffee morning, engaging in conversations with many Computing students about finding placements, improving CVs and portfolios, and other study-related topics that they wished to discuss.

About Me

I am a software developer with a passion for game development and graphics. I am currently in my Masters year of university at Sheffield Hallam, studying Computer Science for Games, which marries my passions for both technology and art. Through this course, I have developed a game engine in DirectX, as well as a game engine for the PS5, which sported a fully-fledged data-driven level editor and high-performance Entity Component System.

I co-founded Trajectile Interactive in early 2025, with our first game Racecar Crashers being nominated for Best Student Game 2025 for the TIGA UK Games Education Awards 2025 , in addition to succesfully winning the “Best in Year” award at the Sheffield Hallam University end of year showcase, which was judged by a panel of industry representatives from game studios in the North of England.

Personal Life

Outside of software, I have many hobbies and interests. I play guitar and make music, with a small album (EP really) in the works. I am also deeply passionate about games, particularly fighting games. I play Street Fighter 5 and 6 at a competitive level, as well as many other games at high-level. On the single-player side, I have always had a softspot for Capcom games, such as Devil May Cry, and have recently been focused on 100% completing all games in the FromSoftware library (with Bloodborne, Demon’s Souls, and Dark Souls III complete so far).

Professional Experience

My last professional role was a software engineering intership at Autodesk in Sheffield, UK. I honed my development skills across the whole tech stack and gained siginificant professional experience by working with multiple development teams across the world, even temporarily acting in a managerial role. The experience awakened a deeper drive to solve problems and improve the ways we work in all areas of computer science. It also greatly enhanced my troubleshooting and debugging skills, enabling me to tackle all problems with more efficiency and tenacity.

Personal Development Projects

My last personal project was actually building this very site, using a new framework called Hugo that I had found out about, as it enabled me to have more control over the design of the site as I could directly write the HTML and CSS compared to templated website makers such as Wix.

My current personal project is to create a multi-platform game engine, connecting my existing DirectX rendering engine with a Vulkan engine that I am also working on, via an abstraction layer so that either graphic API can be used interchangably. On top of this I aim to build a robust editor, similar to the one I made for PS5, with the long-term goal of making the project free for others to use and create games of their own with!

Skills

Here are a few games and graphics related languages and technologies that I am proficient with and have been working with recently:

C/C++
HLSL/GLSL
Vulkan
DirectX
PlayStation® 5 DevKit
PlayStation® 5 SDK
Unreal
Unity
Rust
C#

These are the web development languages and tools I've worked with:

Cypress
Jenkins
JavaScript
React
HTML
CSS

Education

2020 - 2025

Master's of Computing in Computer Science for Games

Sheffield Hallam University

Classification: On Track for First Class

    Key modules that I have achieved high grades in:
      - Effective C++ Programming
      - Advanced Games Console Techniques
      - Parallel Programming for Games
      - Graphics Programming Techniques
      - Advanced Games Console Projects
      - 3D Games Development
      - Software-Hardware Optimisation Techniques
      - Research in Games
      - Fundamentals of Computer Architecture
      - Mathematics for Graphics
      - Mathematics for Modelling and Rendering

    I also completed a Placement Year, which was my paid internship at Autodesk.

2018 - 2020

A-Levels

King Edward VI Aston School Sixth Form

Grades:
Computer Science - A Maths - C Philosophy - C

2013-2018

GCSEs

King Edward VI Aston School

Grades:
Computer Science - 9 Religous Education - 9 English Literature - 8 English Language - 7 Maths - 7 French - 7 Physics - 7 Chemistry - 6 Biology - 6 History - 6

Get in Touch

My inbox is always open. Whether you have a question or just want to say hi, I’ll try my best to get back to you!

Mail me