Walter Pollard Jr

Build once, play everywhere.

Deep-root video since 2006. Built with modern tools.

Philadelphia

Work

  1. Build once, play everywhere.

    Walter Pollard Jr

    Deep-root video since 2006. Built with modern tools.

    • This site is a flight through my work: personal projects first, then the career behind them.
    • Where a project is live, its card links to it.
    • Fly with the wheel, the arrow keys or a swipe. The map on the right jumps to any card, and Z zooms out to the whole path.
    • The list view link in the corner shows all of it as plain text.

  2. PRISM

    Personal project

    Paste a Twitch, YouTube or HLS link and it plays.

    • Plays Twitch live streams, clips and VODs, YouTube through react-player, and HLS and DASH streams.
    • Paste any Twitch, YouTube or HLS/DASH link and it plays at once.
    • Connect a Twitch account to browse followed channels, stats, clips and emotes.

    Open PRISM live

  3. INFERNVS

    Personal project

    Dante's Hell as a map you can fly through, with every point cited.

    • A 3D cutaway of Dante's Inferno in plain JavaScript and Three.js, with no framework.
    • 130 points from the poem, each tied to a canto and line, with the Italian and Longfellow's translation on each card.
    • 110 original pixel sprites and 33 animated scenes.
    • Built in a week in October 2026.

    Open INFERNVS live

  4. React Lifecycle Atlas

    Personal project

    An explorable 3D map of how React renders, commits and cleans up.

    • 21 orbs for lifecycle events and hooks, joined by 28 links and colored by phase.
    • Press play to watch the full lifecycle step through, or run one of five small examples (toggle, counter, input, fetch list or timer).
    • A hooks cheat sheet covers 19 hooks in 8 groups, through React 19.
    • Built in three days in July 2026 as a study tool.

    Open React Lifecycle Atlas live

  5. State of Rip

    Personal project

    An architecture review of my own Twitch bot, laid out as an operator console.

    • A single page in plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with no build step and no dependencies.
    • It reviews my stream bot with a verdict, a health scorecard, an ecosystem graph, pros and cons, a roadmap and a package-extraction board.
    • The bot's backend was about 78,000 lines of TypeScript when the review was written on 2 July 2026.
    • Every tab is drawn from one data file, and the whole page is about 1,100 lines of code.

    Open State of Rip live

  6. JobTrackr

    Personal project

    A dashboard for running a developer job search, built with SvelteKit.

    • A pipeline board, priority-tiered searches, company targets, recruiters and interview prep, in 13 routes.
    • Svelte 5, TypeScript and Tailwind, exported as a static site with no backend.
    • The public build ships example data only. A prebuild check fails the build if tracked code imports private data.
    • 48 commits between March and June 2026, under the MIT license.

    Source on GitHub

  7. Comcast, 13 years

    Career, 2012 to 2025

    The Xfinity Stream HD video player on desktop and Chromecast, and the tools that found out why playback broke.

    • Thirteen continuous years on the Xfinity Stream player team, first as an embedded consultant and from October 2017 as a Comcast engineer.
    • Led Chromecast from MVP to production with the Google Cast team, and built both the sender and a custom receiver.
    • The playback diagnostics and debugging tools I built spread to QA, engineering, support and partner teams because they were useful in P1 incidents.
    • Over 1,800 commits in the Chromecast repository.

  8. The Flash years

    Career, 1998 to 2012

    Video players, ad units and learning tools in ActionScript, before HTML5 video.

    • Owned every Flash project at fearnet.com, including the FEARnet video player, then built the eonline.com video gallery at E!.
    • Built the ActionScript 2 environment that simulates Microsoft Office for the International Computer Driver's License certification tests.
    • Took a broken Flash project that only played and paused embedded video and grew it into the Xfinity Stream web player.
    • Won the Vantage Technologies Developer's Award twice.

  9. Contact

    Say hello

    Email, LinkedIn, GitHub and my resume.

    • Open to all types of roles. W2 preferred.
    • Based in Philadelphia.
    • Email, LinkedIn and GitHub are the ways to reach me. The resume is a PDF.

    Email meLinkedInGitHubResume (PDF)

Work history

  1. Sierra Star Studio

    AI Native Software Engineer, Jun 2025 to present

    • Independent AI-native full-stack and video engineering through an agentic Claude Code workflow.
    • Built PRISM, a multi-protocol live stream player, and a two-part Google Cast system: a Next.js sender and a CAF receiver.
    • Built RTLU Explorer, JobTrackr and RipTheLeetBot.

  2. Comcast Technology Solutions

    Senior Software Engineer 4, Oct 2017 to Jun 2025

    • The go-to engineer for the Xfinity Stream HD video player across desktop and Chromecast.
    • Led Chromecast from MVP to production with the Google Cast team, building both the sender and a custom receiver.
    • Built playback diagnostics, QoE telemetry and debugging tooling adopted across QA, engineering, management and partner teams to root-cause P1 playback incidents.

  3. SunGard / FIS

    Senior Software Consultant, Feb 2012 to Oct 2017

    • Embedded consultant on the Xfinity video player team at Comcast Interactive Media.
    • Originated the Xfinity Stream web player: took over a broken single-purpose Flash project and grew it into the streaming player that moved Comcast from third-party embedded video to owned, full TV streaming on the web.
    • Front-end video player work across desktop and connected devices in ActionScript and JavaScript, with DRM and advertising integration.

  4. Constellation.tv

    Senior Flash Developer, Aug 2011 to Dec 2011

    • Built a live HD video and web-camera group-watching player with OSMF and Akamai plugins.
    • Akamai RTMP, HDN1, HDN2 and SecureHD beta program developer.

  5. Empathy Lab

    Senior Flash Developer, Sep 2010 to Jul 2011

    • Rogers OnDemand OVP video framework with Akamai HDCore CDN integration.
    • UltraViolet interactive modules and video player, an Android 2.2+ video player, and Sprout Online AS3 development.

  6. Razorfish Health

    Senior Flash Developer, Dec 2009 to Aug 2010

    • AS3 development with server-side data-feed integrations for enterprise healthcare clients.

  7. Comcast Entertainment Group

    Senior Flash Developer, Oct 2008 to Jul 2009

    • Built video experiences for E! (eonline.com) and FEARnet, including the eonline.com video gallery and Brightcove-based video players across E!.
    • Directed development remotely from Philadelphia after the FEARnet migration.

  8. FEARnet, Comcast

    Senior Flash Developer and Technology Leader, Mar 2007 to Oct 2008

    • Owned all internal Flash projects at fearnet.com, including the FEARnet video player.
    • Brightcove AS3 video, Omniture AS3 tracking and DoubleClick DART AS3 advertising support; reviewed, deployed and supported third-party vendors.
    • Managed three part-time employees when the technology team was reduced to one.

  9. Refinery Inc.

    Flash Developer and Tech Lead, Jan 2006 to Mar 2007

    • Led development across advertising-agency accounts including Campbell Soup Company, Merck Pharmaceuticals and Merrill Lynch: learning modules, educational games, dynamic surveys and Pointroll banner campaigns.
    • Built custom video players and video podcast players; estimated time, wrote SOWs and managed resources.

  10. Vantage Technologies

    Flash Developer (contract, then full-time), Jun 2004 to Jan 2006

    • Built the AS2 Flash environment that simulates Microsoft Office for the International Computer Driver's License (ICDL) certification tests, then became lead developer for ICDL.
    • Led Flash development on MyAccess (gomyaccess.com), building the MyAccess 6.0 student GUI with essay storage and server-side spellchecking and feedback.
    • Won the Vantage Technologies Developer's Award twice.

  11. Unisys Corporation

    Web Developer and System Test Engineer, Sep 2000 to Dec 2002

    • Designed and implemented two internal PHP, MySQL and Apache sites and administered the web server.
    • Ran Section 508 accessibility testing and wrote test plans across numerous platforms.

  12. Philadelphia Water Department

    Assistant Email Administrator, Sep 1998 to Sep 1999

    • A Drexel University cooperative education placement in municipal government IT.
    • Reviewed legacy COBOL and FORTRAN code and supported email systems administration.