Real-money competition platform Skillz has appointed Vatsal Bhardwaj as its chief product officer.

Bhardwaj comes to Skillz from Amazon Web Services where he served as general manager and director of game technology.

Bhardwaj also previously held positions at Facebook, where he launched and scaled the Oculus App Store, and also as a head of studios at Studio8 plus related roles at Zynga and Match.com.

"I look forward to leading the product team at a moment where Skillz is reimagining the future of mobile gaming and scaling the business," said Bhardwaj.

"I’m pleased to join Skillz during this enormous growth period as the company continues building its foundation, driving the product and tech teams forward to expand the innovative product offerings and deliver fun, fair, and trusted gameplay for players across the globe."

"Outstanding track record"

Going forward, Bhardwaj will lead the global product team at Skillz, reporting directly to the firm’s CEO Andrew Paradise, and will be responsible for the creative direction of new products and services.

Additionally, as Skillz experiences strong, continued growth, Bhardwaj will aid in scaling the teams, operational practices, and systems.

Commenting on the new hire, Andrew Paradise commented: "With an outstanding track record at both Amazon and Facebook, Vatsal brings nearly two decades of experience to the Skillz leadership team at a pivotal time as we aggressively scale and grow our business around the world."

We recently spoke to Paradise about how Skillz's slow inexorable rise has been accelerated by its listing on the NYSE.