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Resume — Brett Jones

I turn advanced technologies into magical products. My specialty is 0→1 product creation: taking ambitious but ambiguous ideas from concept to launch. I'm a player-coach deeply passionate about the craft of product making and cutting-edge technologies. I've repeatedly held single-threaded owner responsibility for creating new teams and products, often starting as the only hire, and growing programs to hundreds of team members. At Amazon, I lead new-to-world innovation programs in Devices & Services, building novel interaction paradigms with AI, managing product managers, UX designers, UX researchers, and design technologists. My work spans novel multimodal interactions with AI, embodied robotics, AR/VR, and projection mapping. Previously co-founded Lightform, a VC-backed startup that exited to Amazon, where I directly owned product, design, marketing, operations, and business while acting as CEO. PhD in Computer Science from UIUC.

Amazon Devices & Services - Lab1262021 – present

Sr. Manager, Product Management – Tech | 2024 – Present
Manager, Product Management – Tech | 2023 – 2024
Sr. Product Manager – Tech | 2021 – 2023

Senior product leader within Amazon’s innovation organization, responsible for inventing new consumer product categories. We are a special projects team dedicated to inventing breakthrough consumer product categories. We invent, design, and build radically new products. We own the "what" and "why" of the products across the hardware and software, including the strategy, go-to-market, user experience, and detailed requirements.

  • Led multiple 0→1 product programs in multimodal AI, embodied systems, and AR/VR.
  • Coordinate cross-functionally across multiple teams and orgs of up to ~80 full-time contributors.
  • Present strategy, investment cases, and reviews to VP and SVP leadership.
  • Manage senior PM, UX, and research leaders.

Lightform2015 – 2021

CEO & Co-Founder

Lightform's products transform spaces & experiences using projection mapping, adding magical effects & ambient interfaces to any object. Lightform uses computer vision to make projection mapping easy. Lightform was a VC backed hardware startup in San Francisco.

Grew PhD thesis into a hardware company with 26 full-time employees. Experienced in full lifecycle B2B and B2C product design & go-to-market. Invented, shipped, & sustained 3 new hardware / software products with an additional 3 products in development: 1 in private beta, 1 in development, 1 in R&D.

  • Product: Managed a product/design team, wrote initial PRDs, spec'd minimum lovable product, and post-launch spec'd new features and hundreds small improvements and bugs resulting in our flagship product at 72 NPS.
  • UX: Owned design, creative technology, user research teams.
  • Marketing: Owned product marketing, website design, and press. Contributed to organic & paid ads content.
  • Operations: Raised 3 rounds from VC including Lux Capital, Dolby Family Ventures, Seven Seas Partners, Baidu Ventures, Amazon Alexa Fund, and more. Owned fundraising, investor reporting, & financials.

Microsoft Research2012 – 2013

IllumiRoom

Invented IllumiRoom, a projector that surrounds your TV with immersive visuals with Hrvoje Benko, Andy Wilson and Eyal Ofek. Featured in the CES 2013 Microsoft/Samsung Keynote.
CHI 2013 paper (Best paper award & best video award)

RoomAlive

Created a unified, scalable framework, RoomAlive, for covering an entire room in interactive projection mapping via multiple projector-camera units. With Raj Sodhi, Mike Murdock, Ravish Mehra, Hrvoje Benko, Andy Wilson, Eyal Ofek, Blair MacIntyre, & Lior Shapira.
UIST 2014 paper

Disney Imagineering2008 – 2010

2008, 2009, 2010 — VR/AR and projection mapping tools with Mark Mine & Bei Yang.

Education

PhD, 2015

UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) #5 US university in CS Computer Science: Computer Vision & Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Focused on VR/AR. Advised by David Forsyth (Computer Vision) & Brian Bailey (HCI)

BS, 2008

UIUC (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) #5 US university in CS Computer Science. Minor equivalent in fine art. Bronze tablet (summa cum laude)

Appendix — CV details

Extended curriculum vitae: research, publications, patents, awards, and more.

PhD work done at UIUC

Projectibles

Optimizing surface color for projection
(UIST 2015)

Arto

The future of photography with depth sensors
(2013)

Around Device Interaction

Spatial input for navigation
(Mobile HCI 2012)

Build Your World

Surface particles for generative projected AR content
(ISMAR 2010)

Electronic Arts

Technical artist intern on the Sims 3. Implemented plugin for Maya enabling in Maya previews of final game procedural textures
(2007)

Press

Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Wired, Engadget, designboom

Publications

Patents

Awards 🏆

Lightform

Grad School

Undergrad

  • Illinois General Assembly Legislative Scholarship, 2005
  • Ruth and Harold Hayward Scholarship, 2007
  • Daniel L. Slotnick Scholarship, 2007
  • Dunn Systems Undergraduate Scholarship, 2008
  • Bronze Tablet (Summa cum laude), 2008. (BS in CS)

Skills

Languages: C/C++, C#, Python. Libraries: OpenCV, Qt, OpengGL, PCL, FFmpeg, Unity, UE. Software: Adobe (Ps, Ai, Pr, Ae), TouchDesigner, Maya

Talks 💁🏼

Hobbies

Agentic coding, generative art. Traditional media:: oil/acrylic painting, sculpture, wood working. New media: creative coding, motion graphics, 3D modeling, photography, cinematography, graphic design. Endurance sports: ultra marathons, triathlons (70.3 Ironman)

Favorite reading 📚