Jack Yang

Jack Yang

Reimagining Reality with XR + AI

I’m Jack, an XR engineer at Microsoft focused on Microsoft Mesh and Teams avatars. Since 2015, I’ve been shipping XR + AI products that make remote collaboration feel natural and human.

Location
Seattle, United States
Email
Medium
jackyangzzh
LinkedIn
jackyangzzh

Experience

present

Mixed Reality Software Engineer at Microsoft

Highlights

  • Shipped performant social experiences that behave consistently across headsets, desktop, and mobile devices.
  • Led cross-functional initiatives to improve performance, accessibility, and localization for avatar customization tools.
  • Built data-driven content pipelines and workflows that keep web, VR, and standalone clients in sync.

AR/VR Interaction Engineer at Holos

Highlights

  • Developed an AR/VR training platform featuring gesture recognition, hand tracking, and contextual guidance.
  • Implemented multiplayer networking, automated 3D model ingestion, and richer interaction mechanics.
  • Partnered with leadership to secure a $750K U.S. Air Force contract and acceptance into Techstars.

XR Researcher at Kats Research Group

Highlights

  • Developed chromatic adjustment algorithms to simulate color blindness on hyperspectral imagery and ported them into a color-calibrated Oculus Rift demo.
  • Built an AI model that mimics human color vision behavior, achieving 90% chromatic adjustment accuracy.

Graphics Researcher at UW Graphics Group

Highlights

  • Built a low-latency VR control loop that maps hand gestures to remote robotic arms.
  • Designed a Unity UI for replaying robotic arm motion from datasets spanning 15+ lab experiments.

Education

Bachelor from University of Wisconsin–Madison

Courses

  • Double-majored in Computer Science and Communication Arts.
  • Served as a teaching assistant for CS 559 (Computer Graphics).

National Game Academy from Carnegie Mellon University

Courses

  • Studied game design at the CMU Entertainment Technology Center.
  • Led development and release of Kitchen Kraving, a VR game for the Oculus Rift DK2.

Effective Leaders: Four Attributes That Underpin The Core Characteristics of Effective Leadership

Featured article ‘Critical Conversation’ published in the book.

Skills

AR / VR / MR
Level: 3/3
Keywords:
  • Unity / C#
  • Unreal / C++
  • visionOS / Swift
  • Babylon.js / WebXR
  • Vulkan / OpenGL
  • Interaction Design
AI / ML
Level: 2/3
Keywords:
  • Python / PyTorch
  • LLMs / Agents
  • OpenCV
  • RAG / MCP / A2A
Web / Frontend
Level: 2/3
Keywords:
  • Three.js / JavaScript
  • React / TypeScript
  • Azure / Cloud Service

Virtual Reality Specialisation from University of London

Machine Learning Specialization from Stanford University

Human-Computer Interaction Professional Certificate from Georgia Tech

Interaction Design Specialization Certificate from UC San Diego

Project Management Certificate from Google

Computer Vision Nanodegree from Udacity