Ilai Levavi

Ilai Levavi

XR & Product Operations. I've run live events for millions of players, built AI-driven product visuals for major retailers, and shipped my own game and VR gallery.

  • Live Ops
  • Monetization
  • Unreal & Unity
  • 3D & AI workflows
View work About me LinkedIn

Experience

Seven years across live-ops, immersive commerce and XR training — at a mobile games publisher, a 3D commerce platform and an eye-tracking startup, and now building products of my own.

  1. Now

    Oct 2025 – Present

    Independent — building with Claude Code

    Own products & client work Shipping real software end to end with AI coding agents as the engineering partner.

    Since leaving Playtika I've been building and releasing my own products and taking on client work, with Claude Code doing the heavy lifting on implementation while I own the product decisions, the architecture and the ship. It has moved me from specifying features to actually shipping them.

    FlashSync is the clearest example — a real-time crowd-sync web app I designed, built and deployed on my own. For clients I've produced AI video campaigns, most recently a run of social films for Kite Lab. Currently building mobile apps for the App Store and Google Play, and websites, on the same stack.

  2. Playtika logo

    Feb – Aug 2025

    Monetization Operations Specialist

    Playtika One of the world's largest mobile games companies — 25+ titles including WSOP, Slotomania and Bingo Blitz, played by hundreds of millions.

    Ran in-game promotions and live events for millions of players on WSOP using internal live-ops tools. Conducted live tests and made sure they executed cleanly, working alongside the product, monetization and live-ops teams to ship revenue-driving offers matched to player behaviour.

    Maternity leave replacement.

  3. ByondXR logo

    Jun – Dec 2024

    Product Image Specialist, AI Tech

    ByondXR Israeli immersive-commerce platform building 3D virtual stores, showrooms and product visualizers for brands including Lancôme, LEGO and P&G.

    Improved the digital product catalogues behind major retailers — Home Center and Shilav — using ByondXR's proprietary AI tooling and Photoshop. Folded those AI steps into the delivery pipeline to get high-quality visuals out faster, directly shaping the look and feel of the customer-facing virtual shopping experience.

  4. Eyeviation logo

    2019 – 2024

    XR & 3D Developer · VR Operations

    Eyeviation Tel Aviv startup using eye-tracking and machine learning to assess and train precision skills, with VR simulators for combat aviation and firearms training.

    As a Unity developer intern, built VR experiences and professional training simulators — contributing level design, environment creation and feature implementation to improve realism and usability.

    Across the same period I worked freelance on 3D visualisations, sold my own 3D models online, and ran virtual reality events, putting headsets on people and walking them through the experience.

Selected work

Ten projects in reverse order — from the most recent back to where it started in January 2023.

A border collie riding inside a breaking wave on a bodyboard.
The Kite Lab shop mid-earthquake, boards airborne and stock strewn across the floor.
A dragon breaking through the shop wall and breathing fire across the counter.

AI video · Client workJul 2026

Kite Lab AI Campaign

A run of vertical social films for Kite Lab, the kitesurfing shop and school in Reshpon. Each one starts as ordinary footage of the real shop, then breaks into something that could not have been filmed — a dog dropping into a barrel, the showroom caught in an earthquake, a dragon coming through the wall.

Shot on location, then built out with AI video models and pieced together with Claude Code driving the generation and edit pipeline, so a batch of clips could be produced and revised in days rather than weeks.

Claude Code · AI video generation · Premiere

A crowd at a live show holding up phones, their flashlights firing together in time with the music.

Web app · Own productJan 2026

FlashSync

A web app that turns an audience into a light show. It listens to the live set, finds the beat in the browser, and flashes every phone in the room together — no app to install, people just scan a QR code and join.

I designed and built the whole thing myself, using Claude Code as the engineering partner: browser-side beat detection, the real-time sync layer that keeps hundreds of devices in step, the DJ dashboard, and the deploy.

Claude Code · React · Node · Socket.IO · Redis · Web Audio · Fly.io

Try it at flashsync.fly.dev

3D modelling & renderingDec 2025

Flip Flop Design

A custom flip flop taken from a client's concept to finished renders. I designed the logo from scratch, developed the visual details, and modelled the full product in Blender — finishing with high-quality renders of the materials and final design.

Blender

The 3D-printed handboard being ridden in the surf.

3D modelling & printingJul 2024

From Design to Catching Waves

1st Elegoo × All3DP Summer Design Contest

A handboard taken from sketch to surf. Concept sketched in Photoshop, modelled in VR with Gravity Sketch, 3D printed, sanded and painted — then taken out and ridden.

Gravity Sketch · Photoshop · Prusa Slicer

Read the All3DP write-up

A hall of the Kupa Rashit exhibition design, modelled and lit in Unreal Engine.

Exhibition designJun – Aug 2024

Kupa Rashit

Concept and complete 3D design for a museum exhibition based on the TV series Kupa Rashit, covering two halls — a 40 × 30 m display space and a 20 × 60 m interactive and games space.

I was responsible for the entire 3D production: modelling, extensive texturing, spatial layout, atmosphere design, and a VR walkthrough in Unreal Engine used to validate visitor flow and prevent congestion before anything was built.

The exhibition was designed in full detail but never produced, due to the security situation.

Unreal Engine · Blender · Photoshop · Premiere

A hall inside the Startup Gallery virtual museum, artwork hung along both walls.

Virtual realityAug 2023 – Feb 2024

Startup Gallery Museum

A virtual reality gallery built in Unreal Engine 5 and published on SideQuest for Meta Quest. It places 2D artwork and 3D models in one navigable space, so a visitor can view a piece flat on the wall and then step into its three-dimensional counterpart.

The collection was created exclusively by Startup Gallery.

Unreal Engine · Blender · Photoshop · RealityCapture · Premiere · After Effects · Lightroom · Topaz AI

Get it on SideQuest

A frame from the Chester Bennington tribute film, the 3D model mid-performance.

Short filmJun – Jul 2023

Chester Bennington AI Song

A tribute to Chester Bennington, made in Unreal Engine. A 3D model of Chester performs a cover of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence, with AI-generated vocals and guitar I recorded myself.

The song comes from an interview where Mike Shinoda mentioned Dave Gahan as one of Chester's influences.

Unreal Engine · Blender · Photoshop · Premiere

A frame from Ping Pong: World of Imagination, the table dissolving into a dreamlike world.

Short filmMay – Jun 2023

Ping Pong: World of Imagination

A short film made in Unreal Engine 5. A simple game of ping pong slips into a dreamlike world, and the protagonist follows it in — the real table and the imagined one blending through animation, crafted environments and sound design.

Unreal Engine · Blender · Photoshop · Premiere

Gameplay from The Town Jumper: a character running through a stylised city street.

Mobile gameFeb – May 2023

The Town Jumper

An endless runner built in Unreal Engine 5 and published on Google Play. Dash through a bustling metropolis collecting coins, dodging obstacles and triggering power-ups in a race against the clock — swipe and tilt to leap hurdles and slide under barriers.

Unreal Engine · Blender · Premiere

Google Play

Pre-construction visualizationJan – Feb 2023

Virtual Mikveh

A pre-construction visualization built in Unreal Engine so a client could walk through a mikveh before it existed. Environment design, lighting and atmosphere carry both the spatial proportions and the ritual character of the space.

The walkthrough let the client refine design choices and understand how the finished mikveh would feel, before anything was built.

Unreal Engine

Ilai Levavi standing on a clifftop above a beach town.

About

I work where product meets engineering.

Technically driven, with a background across XR, live ops and monetization. I take features from concept to launch through data-driven execution — and I build the 3D work myself rather than briefing it out.

At Playtika that meant live events for millions of WSOP players. At ByondXR it meant AI-assisted product visuals for national retailers. On my own time it means a mobile game on Google Play, a VR gallery on SideQuest, a full-scale exhibition designed in 3D, and first place in an international design contest.

Since October 2025 I've been independent, building with Claude Code as the engineering partner — shipping my own products end to end and taking on client work, from a real-time web app I deployed myself on Fly.io to AI video campaigns for a local business.

Product & Live Ops
Monetization strategy · Player behaviour analysis · Live events · Live testing
AI & building
Claude Code · MCP server integrations · API management · AI video generation · Web deployment · Android APK builds
XR & game engines
Unreal Engine · Unity
Design & 3D
Blender · Photoshop · Premiere · After Effects · Gravity Sketch · RealityCapture · AI-driven visual workflows
Languages
Hebrew (native) · English (excellent)

Looking for my next role

Open to product, live-ops and XR roles in Israeli high-tech. If you're hiring, I'd like to hear from you.

Email [email protected] LinkedIn ilai-levavi