Math Systems Engineer

Mathematician · B.S. Mathematics, University of Oklahoma · 4.0 GPA

Relentless problem solver, always looking to optimize.

I turn months of slot-machine math into a single afternoon, and made it usable by people with no math background at all.

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A mathematician who can't leave a slow, manual process alone.

Most of my work lives at the seam between rigorous math (optimization, Markov chains, convolution, hierarchical knapsack solvers of my own design) and tools people actually use. The interesting part isn't the theorem; it's making the theorem disappear into a button.

Outgrows the role

Hired for one job, the tools I build for myself spread until I'm the de-facto technical consultant the whole team runs on.

Empowers the creative

I automate the tedious labor so designers spend their time on the actual creative vision. The machine grinds; the human keeps the taste.

Reduces the friction

My entire identity is built around one thing: pulling friction out of the creative process. Slow, manual, or gatekept behind expertise, I remove it.

Fun fact: beat 10 out of 10 escape rooms in a single day with one friend. Perfect record.

Flagship

Maestro

An interactive platform where designers build a complete slot game's math from scratch, wire feature mechanics as node graphs, script tickets on a grid, and watch a real simulator play it back. No math background required.

Maestro

Author

Visual node-graph compiler

Designers wire mechanics as node graphs; each one generates its own scripter and simulator.

Solve

Hand-authored, solver-balanced

Designers hand-author the tickets, the chips and where they land. A custom knapsack solver handles the value variety, so every ticket resolves perfectly and the whole pool sums to the target distribution. No live RNG.

Verify

Live simulator

Every ticket plays back exactly as authored, the proof the math is right, before anything ships.

Ship

Self-describing export

One clean bundle any engine renders, the contract between the math and the cabinet.

Password required

Build Spooky Link yourself.

A self-guided tutorial walks you through building a real Aristocrat slot's math, from a blank canvas to a game that plays, in about five minutes. Ask me for the password.

Define a symbol set and a paytable.
Wire a hold-and-spin feature as a node graph.
Place tiered chips and script a ticket.
Unwrap it to any target payout.
Watch the simulator play your game.

Impact · Arrow International

The tools I built for myself became the platform ~100 people run on.

Game Design Systems Engineer, 2025–2026. A custom role and career path were created around the individual contributions below.

2 → every game

Progressive jackpots, 10 seconds each

From 2 inaccurate progressives in 5 years to one on every game, a real-time constrained-optimization solver over truncated-geometric survival distributions, with auto-generated GLI compliance proofs.

months → day 1

Concept to playable prototype

An end-to-end pipeline: wire feature mechanics as node graphs, place tiered chips, and unwrap tickets into any target payout via a custom knapsack solver.

sim → exact

Replaced Monte Carlo with instant exact computation

An exact probability engine for bankroll trajectories using absorbing Markov chains and convolution, plus a boolean engine answering compound player-experience queries simulation can't.

hours → 10 min

Distribution rebalancing, no math background

An interactive editor that preserves exact expected-value and hit-rate invariants during freehand editing, with a volatility slider driven by max-entropy Boltzmann fitting.

10–15%

Productivity lift across ~100 employees

End-to-end automation across TeamCity, Perforce and OneDrive with computer-vision detection, auto-generating Game Information Sheets that used to be a constant manual burden.

no live RNG

Class-II, provably fair by construction

Outcomes are a draw from a finite, pre-computed pool: the convolution is the mechanism, so every result is auditable and certifiable, not a live die roll.

Original methods

Where the math is my own.

Inverse Reel Construction

A closed-form method for constructing reel strips directly from target hit-rate profiles and RTP budgets, no simulation. Exact suffix-sum decomposition, with formal proofs of solution existence.

Exact Compound Player-Experience Queries

Exact probabilities for compound boolean events over absorbing Markov chains, “what fraction of players starting at 35× reach a feature between 5× and 10×, then end above 100×?” Hundreds of milliseconds at production scale.

Inverse Experience Design in dev

Given a target player-experience profile, solve for the payout distribution that produces it, convolutional trajectory methods with L-BFGS and reverse-mode automatic differentiation.

Hierarchical Knapsack Solvers

Decompose any target payout into a concrete, valid assignment of tiered chips, the “unwrap” that turns a single number into a playable ticket. A custom hierarchical solver over the tier structure that samples uniformly across every valid decomposition, not just the first that fits.

Selected work

Three tools, one chain.

The whole slot value chain, each stage its own product: design the math, evaluate it, play against it, all off the same probability core.

Design

Maestro

The full concept-to-cabinet slot-math platform. Node-graph authoring, hand-authored tickets balanced to the distribution by a custom solver, a live simulator, and a self-describing export.

Evaluate

Foresight

Reads a game's distribution alone and reconstructs the player experience it produces, and how that drives time-on-device. Lets operators judge slot-floor performance before they ever buy the cabinet.

Play

Runway

Point it at any distribution and it tells you exactly how to play: the bet that maximizes your odds of doubling, a luck meter for the session, and how to mix denominations on a fixed buy-in to push those odds higher, stop-loss included.

Contact

Let's talk.

Open to interesting technical problems, especially anything at the seam of hard math and tools people actually use.

fenner.d.christian@gmail.com gamemathemagics.com

Christian Fenner · Las Vegas, NV Mathematician & Math Systems Engineer