Pieter Swart
Creative developer driven by a love for game development and collaboration.
Creative developer driven by a love for game development and collaboration.
Over the years, I've stuck with a 'fail fast, learn faster' mentality to developing new skills. Many of my projects are prototypes because of my desire to experiment and continuously improve. My hands-on approach and diverse experience has allowed me to expand my problem-solving abilities to a greater context than I would have otherwise, making me a versatile programmer. Each project I've worked on, whether completed or not, has contributed to my growth as a developer, helping me adapt to new technology with confidence.
I've been interested in programming and passionate about game development for almost as long as I can remember. At age 10, I started creating my first video games on Scratch, sparking a lifelong love for planning and designing interactive experiences. At age 13, I was introduced to Python at secondary school, which I enjoyed so much I rapidly exceeded the scope of the curriculum. During the rest of secondary, I honed my skills in task automation and object-orientated programming — eventually creating programs that I used in my GCSEs and A-Levels for revision and practice, like a keyword revision tool (which I used for textbook glossaries and MFL vocabulary) and a vector and matrix problem solver.
My journey into the world of game development took a more serious turn when I began crafting text adventures and tools for others to create them. These projects reignited my passion for games and led me to explore more sophisticated tools. Within a year, I was diving deep into the Godot engine, leveraging my Python background to quickly pick up its scripting language through documentation and practice.
In 2021, I made a hard switch to C# within Godot, embracing more robust coding practices and expanding my technical expertise. I've participated in multiple game jams, where my entries have consistently been well-received. I've also undertaken unreasonably ambitious solo projects that, although never saw public release, required weeks of meticulous planning in the form of design documents or programming systems and editor tools. Since then, I have developed a better sense of what makes a scope realistic in a time frame, and I now aim to habitually document my planning before committing to a project, especially when working with others.
In January 2025, I committed to completing a 50 hour course on Unreal Engine and C++ programming. This has given me hands-on experience with workflows and technology that I never had reason to interact with before, and it has taught me techniques that I now use across languages.
Nowadays, I am a full-time Software Engineering student, aiming to improve my programming practices. In this time, I've gained additional experience with AI development, MVC architecture, UI design, and collaboration within teams, ranging from two to eight people in size. This has given me experience Scrum and GitLab.