Senior Gameplay AI Engineer: AI Bots & Combat

31st Union; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 108,900 - 161,160; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

14 paid holidays per year

Vacation 15–25 days per year

Up to 10 paid sick days per year

Parental and compassionate leave

Wellbeing programs

Job summary

31st Union is seeking a Senior Gameplay Engineer to build AI bots for a AAA free-to-play action game using C++, Unreal Engine 5, and in-house AI systems. You will create bots for combat, traversal, looting, and team play while enabling automated testing at scale.

The role demands 5+ years in shipped gameplay or game AI, deep C++/UE5 fluency, and experience with AI decision systems and networked multiplayer. Join a collaborative studio focused on quality, speed, and scalable automation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of gameplay or game AI engineering on shipped action games.
• Strong C++ and Unreal Engine fluency, including AI controllers, navigation, and EQS.
• Utility AI or comparable decision-making architectures.
• AI in networked multiplayer: client/server authority, prediction, dedicated servers.
• Humanlike combat AI: aim and error models, reaction time, believable movement.
• Optimizing many concurrent agents: LOD and tick throttling.

Responsibilities

• Develop combat behavior: target prioritization, hero-appropriate weapon and ability use, movement, and disengagement.
• Develop humanization: tunable aim, reaction time, and error models across difficulty levels.
• Develop macro behavior: team cohesion, traversal, pacing, events, looting, and progression.
• Extend our utility AI framework: new behaviors, scoring, and tuning.
• Keep bot populations performant: throttling, suspension, and LOD.
• Extend bots as automated test clients, from feature tests to match-scale load tests.
• Build bot evaluation tooling: debug visualization and playtest metrics.
• Partner with design to tune behavior through playtests.

Skills

C++

Unreal Engine

Gameplay AI

AI frameworks

Networking

StateTree

Gameplay Ability System

PID controllers

Tools

EQ S

Navigation

Job description

31st Union is seeking a Senior Gameplay Engineer to build AI bots for a AAA free-to-play action game using C++, Unreal Engine 5, and in-house AI systems. You will create bots for combat, traversal, looting, and team play while enabling automated testing at scale.

The role demands 5+ years in shipped gameplay or game AI, deep C++/UE5 fluency, and experience with AI decision systems and networked multiplayer. Join a collaborative studio focused on quality, speed, and scalable automation.