Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Companion Group is a AAA co-development gaming studio known for its expertise in multiplayer game development. As a Senior AI Engineer, you will create complex AI systems for multiplayer games, collaborating with developers, designers, and animators to enhance gameplay experiences.
Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and refine cutting-edge, multiplayer-ready AI frameworks, decision-making systems, and navigation architectures inside and outside of Unreal Engine
- Produce elegant, highly efficient, and maintainable C++ code optimized for low-latency and low-CPU overhead
- Leverage an expert-level understanding of data structures, algorithmic complexity, and multi-threading to handle high-density AI populations without compromising server framerates
- Partner with cross-functional teams, particularly designers and animators, to build expressive, tactical, and innovative AI behaviors that align with game design pillars
- Contribute to the architecture of server-authoritative AI, optimizing how agent states, sensory data, and movement are replicated across complex multiplayer environments
- Tackle intricate technical hurdles related to dynamic pathfinding, spatial reasoning, group coordination, and custom steering behaviors in dense, chaotic game worlds
Skills
- 6+ years of professional game development experience, with a heavy emphasis on core game AI architecture
- 4+ years of deep experience within Unreal Engine, specifically working with AI controllers, navigation meshes (NavMesh), and behavior systems
- Experience working with at least one proprietary game engine (utilizing C/C++ OOP or ECS paradigms)
- Deep understanding of modern game AI methodologies, including Behavior Trees, State Trees, Hierarchical Finite State Machines (HFSM), and Utility AI
- Excellent C++ programming skills, including proficiency in modern standards (C++17 and C++20) applied to performance-critical systems programming
- Solid understanding of Client-Server game architecture and how AI processing, physics, and animation budgets behave under server-authoritative setups
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with a proven ability to thrive in a fully remote, globally distributed team
- Experience implementing advanced spatial reasoning frameworks, such as Influence Maps, Environment Query System (EQS) overrides, or tactical positioning grids
- Experience with Entity Component Systems (ECS) (e.g., flecs.dev, MassEntity) applied specifically to mass-entity AI and crowd simulation
- Familiarity with Unreal Engine's Gameplay Abilities System (GAS) and integrating it seamlessly with AI decision-making loops
- Academic or practical exposure to Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning, or LLM integrations in a gaming context
- Familiarity with scripting languages and tools development (e.g., Lua, Python) for designer-facing AI authoring tools
- Experience with scalable cloud architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP) to support distributed, server-side AI computation
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