Avin Zarlez

Mother, Advocate, Staff Technical Marketing Engineer at Arm

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Avin Zarlez

Software engineer and developer advocate in developer relations, focused on solving complex problems, building production-ready solutions, and making technical concepts clear, practical, and impactful. I have lead projects from design through architecture, implementation, and delivery, with experience in scalable systems, DevOps practices, and high-quality engineering across teams. I apply that foundation to developer enablement, building demos, prototypes, and technical content, and engaging developers through conferences, workshops, and online communities while driving feedback into product and engineering teams.

Experience

Arm — San Jose, CA

Staff Technical Marketing Engineer
August 2026 to Present

  • Design and develop reusable software demos, reference implementations, and tools that demonstrate Arm capabilities through real-world workflows, with clear setup instructions so developers can run them independently.
  • Collaborate across Arm to translate platform capabilities and developer needs into practical use cases, technical messaging, and developer enablement initiatives aligned with business priorities.
  • Investigate and address adoption barriers in developer marketing resources—including Learning Paths, example code, software tools, and libraries—to improve clarity, usability, and technical accuracy.
  • Engage with developers at conferences and deliver technical presentations, code walkthroughs, and hands-on workshops that help internal and external audiences understand complex technical subjects and their practical applications.

Staff Developer Evangelist
October 2024 to August 2026

  • Represented Arm through conference talks, live coding sessions, and hands-on workshops, helping developers understand and adopt Arm technologies.
  • Built relationships with developer communities and strategic software projects through technical discussions, hackathon mentoring, and engagement across online and in-person channels.
  • Translated developer feedback, ecosystem trends, and adoption challenges into actionable insights for internal teams to inform technical priorities and developer engagement.
  • Designed and implemented software demos, tools, and example applications, providing working code that developers could explore and adapt for their own projects.

Microsoft — Mountain View, CA

Senior Software Engineer
July 2018 to October 2024

  • Delivered 3-to-12-month engineering engagements for strategic customers and partners, taking projects from architecture through implementation, automated CI/CD deployments, and production rollout.
  • Built maintainable enterprise-ready solutions across customer-preferred stacks including Python, C#, Java, and TypeScript, in cloud services such as Azure functions, web services, Kubernetes, authentication, data management, DevOps, machine learning, conversational chat bots and modern AI/LLM systems.
  • Improved cost, user experience, functionality, and operational efficiency for customers across many industries such as manufacturing, retail, healthcare, media, and entertainment.
  • Mentored developers during technical events such as Microsoft’s OpenHack series and contributed functional press-ready demos for new products and services including HoloLens 2.

Senior Technical Evangelist
March 2017 to July 2018

  • Partnered with developers to solve technical challenges, guiding projects from prototype to production using Microsoft tools, services and cloud platforms.
  • Presented technical content to thousands of developers and students through conferences, workshops, and online training, driving platform adoption.
  • Created and maintained open-source projects, code samples, and documentation for Azure, cognitive services, DevOps, and application development.

Technical Evangelist
August 2013 to March 2017

  • Represented Microsoft platforms and technology to game developers, college students, and professional developer communities across the United States and Canada.
  • Produced technical blog posts, training videos, podcasts, and social content.
  • Coordinated meetups, hackathons, and conference participation to grow developer engagement.

PlayPerro — San Jose, CA

Founder / Game Developer
November 2012 to October 2024

  • Company for my solo game development projects.
  • Most known for “#DanceTogether” featured at IndieCade 2016 and the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at the Game Developers Conference 2017.

Yobonja — Los Altos, CA

Co-Founder / Game Developer
November 2009 to September 2013

  • Co-founded an independent game studio and wore every hat across software engineering, design, marketing, customer support, and business operations.
  • Best known for Blast Monkeys, a physics-based puzzle game that became the #1 free Android app in 2011 and surpassed 12 million downloads in its first year.
  • Nominated for “Best Mobile App for Consumers” at the 2012 Global Mobile Awards at GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Core Strengths and Skills

  • Developer Relations & Community Leadership — Driving engagement and adoption through conferences, workshops, hackathons, and technical content for large developer audiences.
  • Software Architecture, Cloud & DevOps Delivery — Designing and shipping production systems across Python, C#, Java, and TypeScript with deep expertise in git, automation, virtual networks, scalable system design and cloud platforms such as Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
  • Developer Enablement & Technical Leadership — Building demos, prototypes, tools, and documentation that empower developers and accelerate successful outcomes.
  • Engineering Excellence & Technical Versatility — Strong code quality practices including testing, code reviews, and version control, combined with rapid learning across new technologies and domains.
  • Cross-Functional Enablement & Mentorship — Partnering with product, engineering, and external developers while mentoring teams to improve collaboration, feedback loops, and overall impact.

Education

Cogswell Polytechnical College — Sunnyvale, CA

Bachelor of Science, Software Engineering

Bachelor of Science, Digital Arts Engineering

  • Graduated Summa Cum Laude with two bachelor’s degrees.
  • President of the Game Development Club and Improv Club, and an associated student body board member.
  • Hired by the school as a C programming tutor and Student Ambassador.