Programming Team Lead (Lead AI Behavior Systems)

Ubisoft is a global leader in gaming with teams across the world creating original and memorable gaming experiences, from Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six to Just Dance and more. We believe diverse perspectives help both players and teams thrive. If you’re passionate about innovation and pushing entertainment boundaries, join our journey and help create the unknown!

As a Programming Team Lead (Lead AI Behavior Systems) at Ubisoft Montreal, you will join a multidisciplinary team bringing together experts in data, programming, game design, narrative, and animation to explore the potential of generative AI in gameplay.

You will contribute to the development of dynamic, immersive, and surprising game experiences by leading a team focused on AI behavior systems. Working at the intersection of research and development, game creation, and cross-studio collaboration, you will help build the technologies behind the next generation of gameplay experiences.

What you’ll do

• Lead a multidisciplinary team composed of MLOps specialists, data scientists, and AI programmers.
• Prioritize, assign, and track team tasks based on deliverables and production goals.
• Design hybrid behavior architectures combining reinforcement learning, imitation learning, generative AI, and traditional game AI approaches.
• Define orchestration strategies between learned systems and deterministic systems.
• Develop credible, controllable, and high-performing systems aligned with gameplay intentions.
• Contribute to the design of machine learning deployment architectures, including online learning approaches.
• Drive scientific monitoring and applied research activities related to decision-making and learning systems.
• Collaborate with gameplay, design, and production teams to support adoption of developed solutions.
• Mentor and support team members in their technical and professional growth.
• Participate in recruitment, onboarding, and performance follow-ups for team members.

What You Bring

Education

• Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Project Management certification (an asset).

Relevant Experience

• 4 to 6 years of experience in gameplay programming or data science.
• Prior experience in management or mentoring.
• Participation in at least one full game production cycle, a robotics project, or an equivalent initiative.

Skills and Knowledge

• Proficiency in Python, PyTorch, and model training environments.
• Experience with reinforcement learning development frameworks (RLlib, TorchRL, or equivalent in-house solutions).
• Strong interpersonal communication skills.
• Demonstrated managerial courage.
• Strong sense of initiative.
• Knowledge of distributed architectures and large-scale training pipelines (an asset).
• Knowledge of databases and development tools (JIRA, Perforce, etc.) is an asset.
• Understanding of technical constraints related to real-time systems, 3D engines, and level editors.
• Familiarity with the tools used by team members.
• Project management knowledge (an asset).
• Understanding of other disciplines involved in game production (an asset).
• Proficiency with the Microsoft Office suite (an asset).