His first job after college involved designing packaging and advertising materials for the now-defunct California Pacific Computer Company (CPCC).

Repackaging Japanese games for the Western world market was the main focus of CPCC in its early days.

[7] Pondsmith's job at CPCC ended because of problems the owner encountered, and he started managing a typesetting house at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Pondsmith admitted that he was mostly basing his work on the Mobile Suit Gundam manga written in Japanese, which he had acquired.

[7] The initial public release of Mekton focused on its battle mechanics with no roleplaying elements at all; this made it a pure tactical war-game.

[14] In 1987, RTG released another of Pondsmith's games inspired by Japanese manga, Teenagers from Outer Space, (RPGA Gamer's Choice Award).

Set in the year 2013 (and often referred to as Cyberpunk 2013), the game was a boxed product consisting of three separate books penned by Pondsmith, with Mike Blum, Colin Fisk, Dave Friedland, Will Moss and Scott Ruggels as co-authors.

[6]: 208  Pondsmith attributes creation of Cyberpunk to his interest in the genre sparked primarily by Ridley Scott's Blade Runner released in 1982.

The motivation behind the Cyberpunk roleplaying game was his desire to recreate the technology and dark, film noir style of the movie.

The sourcebook titled Cybergeneration was further enhanced by additional expansions and a second edition was released in 1995, that built further upon existing, explored themes.

Designed by Richard Garfield, Netrunner featured locations, entities, and characters familiar to Cyberpunk 2020 players.

Mike Pondsmith is featured in the game's credits in the 'special thanks' section and makes a cameo appearance as "Omni Kismet, Ph.D." (character's name is an anagram of his).

[25] In 2000, Castle Falkenstein was adapted to the GURPS system by James Cambias and Phil Masters, and released by Steve Jackson Games.

[6]: 277 After encountering challenges in the role-playing game industry, on February 15, 1998, Pondsmith announced that R. Talsorian would only operate part-time.

The work itself started even earlier, right after the release of the Dragon Ball Z Adventure Game in 1999; and the third edition of Cyberpunk was expected to ship soon afterwards.

[34][35] The game's early manuscript was previewed, and the first public playtesting took place during I-Con in Ronkonkoma, New York between April 8 and 10, 2005.

[32] The game was written by Pondsmith, Mike Blum, Colin Fisk, Dave Friedland, Will Moss, and Scott Ruggels and was finally released on December 13, 2005, to mixed reviews.

[36] Illustrations in the game were criticized,[37][38] for being photographs of slightly modified action figures of which Pondsmith was a collector at the time.

According to Pondsmith, it was designed to become a commentary on the 21st century, corporate influences on everyday life, ideologies of groups, the place of government, warfare and advancements in biotechnology.

The end result of this process was the Fuzion system used by the later RTG titles, most notably the third edition of the Cyberpunk game.

[35][36] Pondsmith holds the rights to Fuzion jointly with Steve Peterson and Ray Greer of Hero Games.

Unlike reoccurring characters like Morgan Blackhand, Johnny Silverhand or Nomad Santiago, Maximum Mike breaks the fourth wall and talks to the reader directly.

[20] On May 30, 2012, it was confirmed that Pondsmith was working with CD Projekt Red on a video game set in the Cyberpunk universe.

[51] Video game creators as well as Mike Pondsmith and other RTG designers will contribute on the newly formed cyberpunk.net blog.

In his spare time he collects plastic GI Joe action figures, prominently featured in the Cyberpunk v3.0 core rulebook, and enjoys outdoor activities, reading, as well as playing around with radio-controlled cars and planes.

[63] Pondsmith also appeared on stage to talk about the Cyberpunk 2077 video game during two of CD Projekt Red's conferences.

On July 1, 2006, he was inducted into the Origins Awards Hall of fame, along with Jolly R. Blackburn, Rodger MacGowan, Dennis Mize (posthumously), Aaron Allston, and the game Star Fleet Battles.