Senior AI Programmer

Rare

Location: Twycross, UK

Rare: we're not your typical developer. Over 30 years in the game-making business, every moment has been dedicated to kicking out one beloved title after another. We've tried all manner of new things in that time, but if there's one thing we've truly come to believe, it's the importance of having fun every single day and infusing it into everything we create. That's the core of who we are – check out the Rare Replay collection for three whirlwind decades of evidence.

We strive to keep Rare a fantastic place to work, from its beautiful location and state-of-the-art facilities to a strong focus on work/life balance. If you're a keen gamer, chances are you've already caught wind of our epic shared world pirate adventure Sea of Thieves, revealed at E3 2015 and currently in Technical Alpha phase with players from our Insider Programme. With every day bringing new challenges and discoveries in equal measure, there's never been a more rewarding time to join our daredevil crew!

Role Purpose

Normally, when we're asking for people to join our Software team, we tend to keep things pretty generalised on the skills front. We find that talented Programmers can usually do a host of different things really well, and our main objective is then giving them a platform(s) from which to use and grow those capabilities as effectively as possible. Here, though, we are seeking an experienced AI Programmer who can combine that flexibility with the ability to lay the foundations for some highly exciting new features.

The opportunities for influence in this role are considerable. We're excited about exploring the potential of how AI systems can impact and create new unique experiences for players. As a studio, we think it's important for us to think about the future potential of where gaming is going, and we embrace doing things differently. Former stock approaches must give way to innovative solutions. It's a hugely exciting time to be an AI Programmer, especially so at Rare, where early technical decisions stand to have huge impact on product design and development. As a Senior, we can promise you'll have as much opportunity to learn as you will have to teach what you already know.

It's just as well, then, that Engineers here at Rare have a lot of freedom to research and develop novel solutions to the problems they encounter. We're also big believers in high-quality Engineering and, since we're developing our products as services, we aim for fast iteration but with robust methods. This means that we embrace modern development practices such as continuous delivery, automated testing, code reviews, pair programming and agile methods.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• An academic and/or deep practical background in the AI domain.
• Current experience, and a desire to retain that, with hands-on creation of AI systems and character-driven gameplay.
• Highly capable when solving novel problems and comfortable taking a mathematical approach when necessary.
• Strong software architecture skills with a proven ability to apply these to the AI domain.
• Demonstrably in touch with the state of the art within games AI, with the potential to add to this.

DESIRABLE EXPERIENCE

• Architecting planning and decision-making systems for agents.
• Writing efficient systems for high agent counts.
• Experience of authoring AI in multiplayer games.
• Working on products where AI behaviour drives emergent gameplay.
• AI story generation, game director and narrative techniques.
• Writing AI behaviours which must cope with rich and dynamic environments.
• Procedural environments are also of interest.
• Writing non-combat orientated agents.

And that's it. Or it's just the beginning. In any case, thanks for reading... and if you're interested, drop us a line. We're looking forward to meeting you!

If interested, apply via Microsoft Careers