We are looking for a Staff AI Designer to join Marathon’s diverse gameplay team. Marathon’s AI designers strive to create fun gameplay experiences by bringing life to the characters players interact with. We value making every encounter different and creating AI with a mindset that NPCs rely on their senses just as players do.
As a Staff AI Designer, you will be responsible for crafting AI characters, creatures, and enemies to populate systemic encounters across a living world. You write design specs, create new characters, author new AI behavior and systems, and tune AI combat difficulty. You will coordinate with other AI designers, AI engineers, 3D artists, animators, visual effects artists, and the audio team to breathe life into characters that provide players with both exciting challenges and clear cues to their moment-to-moment gameplay intentions.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Drive AI features and development of design decisions with partner teams
- Validate of gameplay features through Bungie IP and Franchise standards
- Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team of content creators and engineers to create memorable AI experiences.
- Proactively solicit feedback from stakeholders, and constantly upgrade your ideas and implementations based on that feedback.
- Use Bungie's in-house character creation and data editing tools to create new behaviors, characters, weapons, attacks, and abilities.
- Fine-tune data for enemies to get the challenge level right for a wide variety of situations in both solo and group play.
- Troubleshoot, debug, and fix AI behavior and performances.
REQUIRED SKILLS
- Experience designing, documenting, and building AI combat systems in high quality action combat sandboxes.
- Strong understanding of first-person action games; what makes these games fun, what the rules of thumb are for the genre, how and when to break them.
- Technically proficient; able to learn and utilize complex systems and toolchains to create gameplay experiences; able to suggest workflow improvements.
- Ability to analyze gameplay experiences, identify problems, and generate solutions.
- Social intelligence, great interpersonal skills, and empathy for creative teams
- Ability to handle ambiguity, including giving and handling feedback despite that ambiguity.
NICE-TO-HAVE SKILLS
- Experience designing AI for first person action games.
- Experience in Animation; able to talk anticipation, follow through, character and timing.
- Experience in creating action game missions or activities; able to understand how another designer will use AI characters to create a fun and memorable encounter.
Bungie full-time (non-contract) employees in the U.S. also receive:
- 20 days of accrued time-off in the form of PTO and sabbatical days, depending on the level of the position
- 10 paid Floating Days annually, prorated in the first year of employment based on start date
- 10 paid Bungie-observed holidays annually
- One hour of Paid Sick Time (PST) for every 30 hours worked
Contract and International FTE employees receive competitive benefits through their relevant contracting agency.
So you don't meet every requirement listed in this job description? Do you think your experience level is not where it needs to be? Studies show that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they believe they meet every single qualification. Bungie is focused on building a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. If you're interested in this position but your past experience doesn't line up perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we want you to apply anyway. The right role for you may be right around the corner!
Most Bungie full-time employees will adopt a digital first approach allowing remote work in Bungie approved locations (outside of positions identified as 100% onsite in Bellevue/Seattle, or individuals preferring a hybrid/flex environment). Prospective full-time employees located outside of CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, MA, MD, MI, MN, NC, NJ, NY, OR, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, or WI will need to establish residency in one of the states we are compliant in within 45 days of a start date. Contractors will follow a digital first approach adhering to the location guidelines agreed upon by our third-party employer/vendor and Bungie. Bungie’s remote policy is subject to change at the company’s discretion.
