Jared Arnold

Where engineering and art overlap is where I do my best work.

I studied Computer Science at the University of Virginia and have spent the past three years working professionally in Unity — building shaders, visual effects, and real-time graphics systems in HLSL and C#, with Python, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS filling in wherever the work takes me. What I keep gravitating toward are the problems where math and art are genuinely inseparable — where the solution has to be both technically sound and visually right at the same time.

Six countries, and every one of them changed me a little.

I’ve made it to six countries so far — France, Switzerland, Germany, Iceland, Macedonia, and Scotland — and what stays with me from each one is the landscape. I’m drawn to natural beauty above everything else, and to mountains in particular. The long approaches, the moment a valley opens up below you, the feeling of being somewhere that took real effort to reach.

But just as much as the scenery, I love the people. Every country I’ve been to has taught me something I couldn’t have learned at home — whether that’s sitting with locals in a Macedonian village or just having a conversation that wouldn’t have happened anywhere else.

Climbing demands your complete attention. That’s the point.

I’ve been climbing for years and competed on UVA’s climbing team, which won the USA Climbing Collegiate Divisional in 2023 — a result that came from a group of people who genuinely cared about getting better together.

Outside of competition, climbing is something I come back to because it requires total focus. There’s no room for anything else when you’re working a hard route — which, depending on the day, is exactly what you need. It also tends to put you in places that are difficult to reach any other way.