Mr.Farmville

Social gaming hiring activity was relatively subdued this week among top developers, according to our latest look at LinkedIn. Nonetheless, RockYou and Playdom still see some significant additions with veteran game developer Raph Koster taking his official position as Vice President of Creative design at the latter, and Mia Kang beginning a new job as Director of Sales at the former. Additionally, we have expanded our coverage of hiring changes to encompass the top 20 social game developers, based on our AppData leaderboards.

Here’s the list:

CrowdStar

• Marius Pieniazek – Now a Billing Support Representative at Crowdstar, Marius previously worked as an MMORPG Billing & Accounts Specialist at GOA Games.

MindJolt

• Sunli Guo – Formerly an Engineer Intern at Tealeaf Technology, Sunlie Guo gets a new role as a full Software Engineer at MindJolt.

Playdom

• James Robbins – James joins Playdom as its newest Senior Flash Developer. Before this, he worked as a Web & Flash Developer at Brooks Bell Interactive.
• Nicole Jacks – Previously a Recruiter at ACS, a Xerox Company, Nicole joins Playdom under the same title.
• Anupom Syam – Anupom joins Playdom as a new Development Lead. His prior experience stems from MIT Media Lab, where he worked as a Contributor.
• James Gauthier – Part of the Metaplace acquisition, and formerly a Client Lead, James joins Playdom as a Senior Engineer.
• David Kozlowski – With experience as a Producer at Gazillion Entertainment, David Kozlowski becomes a Senior Producer at Playdom.
• Raph Koster – As noted already, the former Metaplace President, Raph Koster, joins Playdom as its new VP of Creative Design.
• Derek Valerio – Formerly an Architectural Intern at Gensler, Derek joins Playdom as their newest Artist.
• Kim Liu – Kim is now an HR Analyst for Playdom. Prior to this, Kim was a Financial Analyst Intern at USAA.

PopCap Games

• T. Carl Kwoh – Though technically not a new hire, T. Carl Kwoh is the newest Producer at PopCap Games, having moved up from his previous role as Associate Producer.

RockYou!

• Mia Kang – Mia Kang marks another major hire in the social world, joining RockYou! as its new Director of Sales. Previously, she was an Account Executive at SocialVibe.
• Alex Sink – Formerly a “Technical Yahoo!” at, well, Yahoo!, Alex joins RockYou! as one of its new Flash Developers.
• Matt Tenenbaum – Mat is now a Front-End Engineer at RockYou! Previously, he worked as a Researcher at Earl Industries.
• Kelli Dragovich – Now Head of HR at RockYou!, Kelli Dragovich was formerly the HR Director for Yahoo Global Platforms Engineering.
• Anatoli Fomenko – With prior experience coming from Oracle as a Java and Java FX Architect (Consultant), Anatoli joins RockYou! as a new Facebook Application Developer.

Zynga

• Panayoti Haritatos – Though not a new hire, Panayoti Haritatos changes roles at Zynga from Lead Developer to Executive Producer.
• Mary Ann Bailey Sharp – In another job shift at Zynga, Mary Ann is now a Research Recruiter for the social company. Previously, she was a University Relations Manager.

Source: Inside Social Games