Tom Sanocki

Tom Sanocki is the Engineering Director for Avatars at Roblox, a position he has held since December 2020. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has over 20 years of experience in engineering leadership, particularly in the fields of gaming, virtual reality (VR), and animation.

Professional Background

Sanocki has a diverse and accomplished career:

• Roblox: As Engineering Director, he focuses on enhancing avatar visuals and technology on the Roblox platform. His role involves hiring and leading teams with expertise in game development, tools, and backend systems.

• TripActions: Before joining Roblox, he served as Director of Engineering, where he led the Enterprise group to scale the company's offerings for larger clients.

• Facebook (Meta): He was a Senior Engineering Manager in the AR/VR division, overseeing product teams that developed social VR applications.

• Lytro: As Engineering Manager, he led teams in creating interactive and real-time experiences.

• Limitless Ltd: Sanocki was the CEO and technical founder of this company, which focused on interactive character technology and was later acquired by Lytro.

• Bungie: He worked as a Tech Art Lead for characters and cinematics on the "Destiny" franchise.

• Pixar Animation Studios: Sanocki was a Character Lead, contributing to major films like "Cars" and "Ratatouille," and was awarded for his work on animated characters.

Achievements

Sanocki holds five patents and has authored multiple papers and presentations in the fields of VR/AR and computer graphics. He is a member of the Visual Effects Society (VES) and received a VES Award for Outstanding Animated Character for his work on the character Mater in "Cars" .12