Senior Software Engineer

Job DescriptionJob Title: Senior Software Engineer (Match AI)Team: MatchReporting into: Lead Engineer (Match AI)Working Model: Hybrid | Remote by exceptionStudio OverviewWe are Sports Interactive The gaming studio behind: ⚽ Football Manager.Founded in 1994, Sports Interactive became a wholly owned subsidiary of SEGA Europe in 2006. Based at the Here East technology hub in Stratford, East London, the SI team continues to expand as we bring our titles to an ever-growing audience across an increasing variety of platforms.To support our growth, we welcome the opportunity to connect with passionate people with the drive to match our ambitions and initiative to realise your individual potential.Position OverviewWe are looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our London based studio to enhance our match engine and help take our football match simulation to the next level. The match engine team are responsible for the technological advancements of our state-of-the-art in-house engine which simulates and visualises football matches.You will join a passionate and flourishing team who care deeply about the realism and visual quality of the match simulation in our games.As part of this team, you will be working on our match simulation engine and the supporting systems, which are used across multiple projects and products for producing realistic simulations of football matches. Your focus will be on improving the realism and performance of our match engine by, but not limited to, developing the AI decision making processes and you will be involved with researching and implementing the required technologies to achieve this goal.You will contribute and maintain the direction and realism of our Match Engine and the visual experiences within the match experience that our users have in our products, and you have input into the team specifically as well as the studio generally with the opportunity to voice your ideas and suggestions.Our match simulation engine is shared across multiple products and is a critical part of the games we make, and you will consider challenges involving the match experience across several platforms, including on mobile devices.We are looking for self-motivated people with good communication skills who can complete work independently as well as part of a team.Key ResponsibilitiesDevelop, extend, improve, and maintain our code base, workflows, and tools that support our football match simulation. Collaborate closely with our match AI, animation, art, graphics, UI and tools teams across the studio to continuously improve the look and feel of our match simulation. Design and implement complex systems and understand the impact on the wider match engine and experience. Analyse, identify, improve and fix complex issues in our match code base to maintain our deterministic engine. Work across multiple platforms and projects to ensure we deliver the best performance and experience to our customer base. Work closely with and iterate on our match engine, match features, and internal tools, to continuously improve the look and feel of our match simulation. Ensure systems are well-documented, tested, and meet quality expectations. Collaborate with internal teams to enhance realism and human-like behaviour. Research, prototype, and implement new simulation technologies to keep our systems at the forefront of innovation. Help leads and more senior engineers and managers improve software engineering practices. Own areas of the match codebase and maintain them across all supported platforms and drive the direction of them. Contribute to technical areas such as Optimisation, Multithreading, Influence Maps, Behaviour Trees, Statistics, Path Finding, Collision Detection, Physics, Machine Learning. Knowledge, Skills, And ExperienceKeen interest and understanding in Football. Football Manager fan a bonus. Strong academic background with a 2:1 degree or higher (or equivalent) in a relevant technical field, such as computer science, software engineering, mathematics or physics. Considerable professional C++ programming experience in the field of video game AI, having shipped at least two video game titles. Minimum five years of professional experience using C++ as the main language. Experience and understanding of C#, ideally Unity game engine Experience designing and developing sophisticated video game AI systems (behaviour trees, path finding, machine learning) within the games industry. Strong mathematical, analytical, and problem-solving skills. A good understanding of performance and optimisation. Good communication skills for effective collaboration with software engineers, designers, QA, and production staff. Proactive and self-motivated with a drive to improve yourself and others continuously. Benefits of Working at Sports Interactive:A flexible working policy to best suit you and your team. Subsidised mental health, therapy and coaching sessions are available.