Principal AI Engineer (AI games)

UserWise is an innovative game production studio focused on leveraging AI to accelerate the development and scaling of mobile games globally. Unlike traditional studios, UserWise emphasizes ownership, clarity, and rapid execution by integrating AI-driven workflows throughout the production process. The team operates globally, creating production-ready games and supporting them through LiveOps to maximize impact and reach.

Key Responsibilities:
- Own the technical architecture for AI and automation across the studio, establishing shared infrastructure, engineering standards, and best practices.
- Develop AI agents, tools, and automated workflows that support the entire game production lifecycle—from opportunity research and prototyping to creative production, QA, launch testing, and LiveOps.
- Design reusable systems that enable teams to accelerate the process from idea to prototype, testing, and launch.
- Integrate external AI and large language models (LLMs) such as Claude Code, MCP servers, and Cursor with Unity pipelines, development environments, and internal tools.
- Build AI-powered analysis and reporting tools that convert game, production, and user acquisition data into actionable insights.
- Create monitoring systems to track workflow health, detect bottlenecks, failures, and data gaps before they impact production.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Product Builders, Producers, UA, Creative, QA, and Game Operations to identify and automate high-impact manual tasks.
- Develop AI-assisted workflows within Unity and other environments to provide meaningful production leverage.
- Rapidly evaluate and adopt new AI models, tools, and approaches that deliver measurable advantages while retiring ineffective solutions.
- Enhance the reliability, observability, scalability, and cost-efficiency of AI systems as their usage grows.
- Establish practical guardrails around data access, security, quality, evaluation, and human review.
- Serve as the senior technical authority on applied AI within the studio, mentoring engineers and enabling both technical and non-technical teams to effectively use AI.

Required Qualifications:
- Extensive software engineering experience with a proven track record of designing and shipping production systems.
- Recent hands-on experience working with LLMs, AI APIs, agents, or automation platforms.
- Demonstrated success in delivering AI-powered systems, internal tools, or automation workflows actively used by teams in production.
- Strong programming and systems engineering fundamentals.
- Expertise with modern LLM development patterns, including tool/function calling, agentic workflows, model integration, evaluation, and orchestration.
- Experience integrating APIs, third-party platforms, and cloud-based systems.
- Solid understanding of data pipelines, analytics, and leveraging data for automated decision-making and reporting.
- Ability to design reusable, scalable, and reliable systems rather than one-off prototypes.
- Aptitude for translating ambiguous problems across product, design, art, UA, QA, and operations into technical solutions.
- Sound judgment regarding build vs. buy decisions, model selection, performance, reliability, security, and cost.
- Comfortable working in a fast-evolving technical environment where tools and models change rapidly.
- High ownership mentality, capable of identifying problems, making decisions, building, and shipping solutions independently.

Preferred Qualifications and Benefits:
- Experience with Unity and C# development.
- Background in building tools or infrastructure specifically for game development.
- Experience in mobile gaming or other fast-iteration consumer products.
- Familiarity with free-to-play (F2P) metrics such as retention, engagement, CPI, monetization, and LTV.

Benefits and Work Environment:
- Opportunity to impact multiple teams by building systems that improve overall studio operations.
- High ownership culture where identifying and solving problems is encouraged and rewarded.
- Hands-on role combining architecture design with execution.
- Fast-paced environment emphasizing rapid prototyping, deployment, measurement, and iteration.
- AI-native studio where AI is deeply embedded in the design, build, test, and scaling processes.
- Production-first mindset focused on practical impact over theoretical research.
- Low bureaucracy with an emphasis on building solutions rather than adding process overhead.
- Competitive compensation package including paid time off, performance bonuses, and annual performance reviews.

This role offers a unique opportunity to lead the technical AI infrastructure that powers a cutting-edge game studio, driving innovation and efficiency at every stage of game development.