xabk

My awesome biography constrained to a sentence or two goes here.

I’m Alex.

I take care of localization at Coffee Stain Publishing, mixing the roles of a loc lead and a loc engineer. I had to learn a lot about Unreal and Unity along the way, and I want to share this. Before Coffee Stain, I used to be a freelance translator, then a localization PM at a loc agency. I also did a bit of engineering and sales, and eventually led a team of loc PMs before switching to the product side of things. Now, it’s been like 16 years since I started translating games… and I’m happy that it led me to this role at Coffee Stain.

I’m interested in localization and loc-related workflows, automation, and integrations. Currently, I work with games using Unreal Engine and Unity. As our loc hub and CAT tool, we use Crowdin. Plus Google Sheets for collaborative spreadsheet stuff. I mostly code in Python, but also a bit in Javascript (in Google Apps Script). I’m okay with Unreal Blueprints and I can read C++ and C#.

So you can expect me to write about all of that here, with more focus on Unreal than Unity, at least for now.

I have a bunch of reasons to start this blog:

  • Surfacing localization-related information. It was pretty hard for me to find information on a lot of things related to localization and Unreal Engine when I joined Coffee Stain. Some of it I found in other people’s blogs. Now I want to give back and share what I know and learn, and maybe it’ll help someone.
  • Sharing what I do as a loc lead here. I am myself inspired by things that other people do in the gaming and software industry, and now I feel like I’m ready to share something fun myself, and maybe inspire someone to go for the same mix of loc and tech roles that I have.
  • Finding other people who are interested in the same stuff. I have plans and ideas, and I’d love to team up with other people who want to improve localization-related workflows in Unreal and maybe Unity.

I have developed some stuff already and came up with some ideas that I’d love to share and discuss. I aim for most of the stuff I do or come up with to be public or open-source. Most of it lives on Github: https://github.com/xabk.

That’s about it for the professional intro.

Bio: I’m 37, I moved to Stockholm in 2022 and I love the place. I’m into running, hiking, and just walking a lot. I swim, and I love cycling as well. Naturally, I’m crazy enough to do triathlons sometimes. I also love reading, mostly sci-fi and fantasy books. I’m curious about typography and design, UI and UX, programming, and science in general.