Gameplay AI Software Engineer, Original Game (Unreal Engine 5)

Blackbird Interactive•Vancouver, BC

41d•CA$96,000 - CA$144,000•Remote

About The Position

Blackbird Interactive is seeking a Gameplay AI Software Engineer to drive the technical direction and execution of a new original game being developed in Unreal Engine 5. The role involves embedding within a core gameplay team to implement essential gameplay features and systems, ensuring a polished, performant, and fun player experience. This position is remote-friendly within Canada, requiring overlap with Pacific Time business hours. The company offers flexible work arrangements and is only able to hire candidates legally eligible to work in Canada and residing within Canada.

Requirements

5+ years of professional game development experience, with demonstrated technical leadership through project ownership, mentorship, and setting engineering standards.
Strong professional experience with C++ and Unreal Engine, including gameplay architecture, runtime systems, debugging, and optimization.
Deep experience building and maintaining gameplay systems that are responsive, scalable, and designer-friendly.
Advanced knowledge on blueprints and AI decision making tools (Unreal behavior trees, utility AI, etc.).
Demonstrated confidence in using navigation and pathfinding systems.
Comfortable working across systems boundaries, collaborating with multiple disciplines, and balancing short-term production needs with long-term technical health.
Strong ownership mindset, practical decision-making, and a focus on helping teams move effectively under production constraints.

Nice To Haves

Experience with the Unreal Engine 5 systems, like Blackboards, StateTree, and EQS.
Familiarity with Perforce, Jenkins, Unreal Build System, Unreal Gauntlet.

Responsibilities

Work across disciplines to build, refactor and maintain a variety of robust, flexible, and well-architected AI features.
Work with the design team to prototype and implement AI behaviors that empower the fun.
Implement enemies, NPCs or any kind of AI managed characters.
Work with gameplay engineers to integrate developed AI systems.
Implement optimizations in perception systems and decision-making systems to make the AI performant.
Work on navigation & pathfinding systems and demonstrate the ability to debug complex AI issues.
Integrate and maintain AI middleware across all platforms.
Partner closely with design and content teams to build high quality and fun experiences.
Drive engineering quality across gameplay code, emphasizing performance, maintainability, extensibility, and production-readiness.
Establish engineering best practices for Unreal Engine 5 development, including code review standards, debugging workflows, profiling habits, and technical planning.
Collaborate with technical leadership to break down risks, define implementation strategies, and align engineering execution with project goals and production timelines.
Communicate clearly with stakeholders about technical constraints, trade-offs, dependencies, and execution plans.