Principal R&D Scientist on Bots & Behaviors

Ubisoft’s 18,000 team members, working across more than 30 countries around the world, are bound by a common mission to enrich players’ lives with original and memorable gaming experiences. Their commitment and talent have brought to life many acclaimed franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Just Dance, Rainbow Six, and many more to come. Ubisoft is an equal opportunity employer that believes diverse backgrounds and perspectives are key to creating worlds where both players and teams can thrive and express themselves. If you are excited about solving game-changing challenges, cutting edge technologies and pushing the boundaries of entertainment, we invite you to join our journey and help us create the unknown.

Ubisoft Bordeaux

Founded in 2017, Ubisoft Bordeaux works with passion on the biggest AAA titles to deliver the best gaming experiences. Today, the studio is composed of 400 talents from 20 different nationalities, working on licenses such as Assassin's Creed, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and a free to play game, BattleCore Arena. At the same time, the studio has set up a Tech branch which works on all Ubisoft's online services (named Online Services) as well as on the Anvil game engine. Ubisoft Bordeaux is also home to a R&D team, La Forge, which brings together engineers and researchers to work together on prototypes for game production, particularly around AI topics.

As Principal R&D Scientist on the topic of bots and behaviors, you’ll act as an innovation leader, a recognized domain expert who is accountable to articulate a research vision and execute a research portfolio that is coherent, ambitious, multidisciplinary and impacts concretely our core business.  

The position is geographically based in Ubisoft Bordeaux, within the French department of La Forge (Ubisoft La Forge | Ubisoft).

As a valued team member, you will

• Lead strategic research projects, evaluations, innovation novel and emerging computer science technologies, trends, and best practices applicable to behaviors of bots and NPCs in game creations: player experience and creator assistance are two equally important sides to consider.
• Explore innovative methods to accelerate production workflows with significant impact.
• Collaborate extensively with internal and external leaders and specialists.
• Provide strategic advice and suggestions for designing, implementing, operating, and optimizing production workflows tailored to meet the needs of new generations of games.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate the research team “bots & behaviors” (explorations, research directions and projects, internships, cooperations with production and other technology departments within Ubisoft on industrializations) with its researchers, students, academic partners. Build, update and communicate its roadmap, aka the “bots & behaviors cartography”. Make the link with La forge research engineers.
• Supervise directly current French PhD students (on transfer learning, on human like behaviors) and future French PhD students, contribute to supervision of worldwide PhD students or PhD interns.
• Identify and explore relevant academic concepts and lead their transformation into practical game technologies and production workflows.
• Extensively collaborate with internal and external multidisciplinary teams to deliver ambitious prototypes, in game demonstrators, and ensure their adoption from an end user perspective.
• Influence other departments roadmaps for designing, implementing, operating and optimizing production workflows for incoming and future games.
• Share accessible insights with a variety of stakeholders, including upper management.

Education 

PhD in relevant scientific domains

Relevant experience  

• 10 years’ experience or more and in-depth expertise related to the position.  

• Background in applied or basic research (in industry or university) + ability to conduct research using standard experimental methodologies. 
• Hands-on experience with cutting-edge techniques such as deep learning, reinforcement learning, algorithmic foundations or optimization.
• Contributions to public research (ex. papers published in relevant venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, SIGGRAPH).
• Supervision of PhDs or other researchers, HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches) or equivalent is an advantage.
• Demonstrated experience in transforming research into operational success. 

Skills and Knowledge 

• Technical expertise:

1. Good knowledge of software engineering constraints.
2. Recognized academic contributions (publication, conferences, etc.).

• Curiosity, critical thinking and resourcefulness (you'll have access to world-class data, game engines and experts).
• Innovative mindset, looking for solutions to real-world problems in the video game industry.
• Speaking French is a plus.
• A collaborative and user centric team player with excellent organizational, interpersonal and communication skills.
• Oriented towards business/company values. 

Skills and competencies show up in different forms and can be based on different experiences, that's why we strongly encourage you to apply even though you may not have all the requirements listed above.

Contract: Permanent contract

Location: role based in Bordeaux – France

Remote: hybrid model

Recruitment process:

1. First call with the Recruiter
2. Interview with the Development Director
3. Final interview with the team

If your application is not retained, you will receive a negative answer.

To find out more about our studio and Ubisoft's advantages, go to: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/studio/bordeaux

At Ubisoft, you can come as you are. We embrace diversity in all its forms. We’re committed to fostering a work environment that is inclusive and respectful of all differences, we value diversity at our company and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability status. All personal informations will be treated as confidential according to the Employment Equity act.

Check out this guide to help you with your application, and learn about our actions to encourage more diversity and inclusion.