[2][3] After beginning her career working with Brian Reynolds and Sid Meier at Microprose Software[4] in 1992, she joined AOL in 1996, where she became Programming Director for the Games Channel.
[5] In March 2008 she joined 38 Studios as Senior Vice President of business development, and moved into the position of CEO in the same company in August 2009.
[1] MacLean left the 38 Studios upon its bankruptcy in 2012; dating her departure to March 2012, when she took a leave of absence.
She has stated that her main goal is to work with small to medium-sized game developers and that her new position will allow her to help with the development of the different stages within Amazon Web Services, Alexa, Twitch Prime, and Amazon.com[8] At IGDA, MacLean was responsible for expanding new chapters in Pakistan, Istanbul, Kenya, and Fortaleza.
Special interest groups for Latinx and Muslim game developers were also formed under MacLean's leadership.