Tanjulia Akter is redefining the gaming industry with her expertise in AI and scalable system design at Electronic Arts. Her journey began with a love for coding in C, sparked by a passion for solving complex problems. Early recognition for her machine learning algorithms at global tech conferences set the stage for a career marked by innovation.
Now a key player in optimizing Electronic Art's Frostbite engine, Tanjulia develops AI-driven systems that power real-time data processing for visually stunning games. Her work on a dynamic lighting system showcases her approach: modular architecture, rigorous prototyping, and stress-testing to ensure scalability and performance.
Navigating a male-dominated field, Tanjulia faced early doubts but found strength in mentorship and diverse teams. “Different perspectives fuel innovation,” she says. As a collaborative yet decisive leader, she fosters inclusive environments where creativity thrives. Her systematic approach to problem-solving—isolating bugs, tracing root causes, and verifying fixes with regression tests—ensures robust solutions.
Beyond her technical contributions, Tanjulia mentors underrepresented talent, inspired by her own experience as one of only four women in her graduating class in computer science. As AI saturates the industry, she stresses the need for expert oversight to stay ahead. Tanjulia’s resilience and vision continue to inspire a new generation of engineers to push boundaries and embrace diversity in tech.
Tanjulia Akter is a Senior Software Engineer and Engineering Manager at Electronic Arts, where she helps lead development of the Frostbite game engine powering many of EA’s flagship video game franchises (including Battlefield and FIFA). She rapidly rose through the ranks to become the youngest engineering manager in EA’s history, and is recognized for her technical leadership as a senior architect on the Frostbite team. Tanjulia spearheaded a number of innovations at EA - from a patented communication framework to one-click developer tools that have improved efficiency across global studios and supported top-selling games generating over $4 billion in revenue. A passionate advocate for diversity and ethical tech, she has twice presented at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) to over 30,000 industry peers and was selected to represent EA’s women technologists at the Grace Hopper Celebration, sharing insights on topics like unconscious bias in AI and inclusive game design.
You can easily get in touch with her at tanjuliaakter@gmail.com.
Layne Hartsell, PhD. USA (雷恩∙哈特塞尔 - 마이클 레인 핫셀), serves as a board member of the editorial department at Korea IT Times and is a fellow specializing in the 3E fields—Energy, Economy, and Environment at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. His previous roles include assistant professor in the Department of Convergence Studies at Sookmyung Women's University, researcher at the Asian Women's Information Centre, researcher at the Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology at Sungkyunkwan University, lecturer in Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics at the Siriraj Medical Centre at Mahidol University, and researcher at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Virginia.
You can find the Korean version of this article here.
