My story

2008: Game Industry. After graduating with a first-class BSc in Computer Science (specialising in AI), and a brief stint as a game developer at Lehman Brothers in Canary Wharf, I followed my passion and joined the game industry. I was lucky to secure a role at Mind Candy, then a small start-up, to work on Moshi Monsters. We grew it from a small beta to a global children’s brand with over 100 million players. During this time I was named in MCV Develop’s 30-under-30.

2011: Unity. After Flash’s decline, I taught myself Unity and C#, volunteered as sole-organiser of one of the world’s biggest Unity meetups (London Unity User Group), and ended being hired by Unity. I worked as a Developer Relations Engineer, supporting game studios worldwide, from indies to AAA, helping them get their games over the finish line.

2012: First Business. I founded my own game development and consultancy company working with Unity, MediaTonic (Epic Games), The Mill, A Brave Plan, and more, all while working on my own projects. I spoke at conferences worldwide and spent a year as a digital nomad.

Burnout 1. I was working too hard and hadn’t taken a holiday in a long time. Eventually my body forced me to stop and I was signed off work by the doctor. I was unable to work for ~6 months. It was a scary time and I didn’t understand what burnout was or why it was happening. All I knew was that something big needed to change.

2016: Scotland. I moved to Perthshire and expanded my business to include photography and fine art. That led to teaching both creative workshops and business workshops for clients such as Culture Perth & Kinross, Cultural Enterprise office and more. I also exhibited and sold my art art galleries across Scotland including the Royal Scottish Academy.

2019: Cancer diagnosis, followed closely by the pandemic. After navigating both of those challenges, I returned to Edinburgh and full-time work. Supporting the teams at SixtoStart and Preloaded on fantastic projects using AR, XR and Epic’s UEFN.

Burnout 2. Remote work, back-to-back meetings, no breaks and small teams with tight deadlines where it felt impossible to slow down. I tried to power through but once again my body forced me to stop. This time I noticed my own patterns and warning signs. I began to properly think about how to work in a way that works for me.

2023: Vesper. I co-founded Vesper, an AI startup that let anyone build a videogame just by writing. As co-founder, CTO and CPO I led product and development, line-managed a remote team of 12 across Europe and helped raise two 7-figure rounds.

Burnout 3. In 2024, after 5 years of hospital checks I finally received the all-clear from cancer. News like that really changes your perspective on things and I decided to take a hard look at my career and the kind of life I wanted to live. In late 2024 I realised I was severely burning out again and so I decided to step away from Vesper.

2025: Cat Burton Ltd. I founded my own company and made it my priority to listen to my early warning signs of burnout. My mental health, physical health and wellbeing are now the best they’ve ever been. I coach founders and leaders and work with organisations, incubators, accelerators and VCs to provide burnout workshops. I also went full-circle and helped Mind Candy on a freelance basis in 2025-26 to set up a new team and project.