Josh Taylor
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Toronto · Founder of Vouch · Systems designer

Hi, I’m Josh.

I design and build systems that carry on by themselves: the crowds and animals of an open world, a galaxy that finds its own arms. Eleven years shipping software, four of them at Rockstar Games and four at Lightspeed LA. Vouch is live and I keep building it. I am also looking for my next team.

01 · 2010–2013 · Hamilton

Physics first

B.Sc. in Physics at McMaster University. In a computational physics course I simulated a galaxy in Fortran 90: a star cluster that formed its own spiral arms. It was my favourite course.

02 · 2014–2017 · Toronto

Then games

Game Programming diploma at George Brown College, on the Dean’s List, as game director and lead programmer on the capstone projects. Then two first jobs: safety-training games in Unity and C# for Vale, a mining company, and browser games in TypeScript and Phaser at Relish Interactive.

Vale

03 · 2017–2021 · Rockstar Games

Ambient life

Game Designer and Scripter at Rockstar’s Toronto studio. Most of my time went to Red Dead Redemption 2, where I built mission and ambient systems and content: the life that carries on in an open world whether or not anyone is watching.

Red Dead Redemption 2

04 · 2017–2021 · Rockstar Games

GTA V and VI

The same work on Grand Theft Auto V and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI, in Rockstar’s own engine. GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 have been played by more than 200 million people.

GTA VGTA VI

05 · 2021–2025 · Irvine, California

Lightspeed LA

Senior Ambient Systems Designer at Tencent’s Lightspeed LA, and the first open-world systems designer on Last Sentinel, an action game set in a dystopian future Tokyo. Over four years I designed its ambient population (NPC behaviours and schedules, crowds, animals, vehicles) and built it and its pipelines from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5 Blueprints. Every milestone was delivered on schedule.

Lightspeed LALast Sentinel

06 · 2021–2025 · Laguna Beach

By the ocean

For those four years I lived in Laguna Beach. Daisy was born in February 2024: half German Shepherd, half Rottweiler, and fully committed to fetch.

07 · August 2025

Then the layoff

The studio laid me off in August 2025. That was not the plan. I moved home to Toronto.

08 · 2026–now · Toronto

Vouch

Founder and sole engineer. Vouch is a word-of-mouth app that rewards people for recommending places to their friends. Two phones meet over Bluetooth, and the recommendation passes between them. It is live on the App Store and Google Play, and I built every part: the Flutter app, the Firebase backend, the Stripe billing, and the admin dashboard.

vouchapp.caApp StorePlay Store

09 · ongoing

The Lab

What I build when nobody is asking for it.

How each was built

Writing

Résumé

Contact

I am looking for my next team, in Toronto or remote. Write to me.

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    Emailjoshua.taylor92@gmail.com
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    LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/jctbsc