Video Game Development, Game Engine Development, Digital Distribution

Principal Research Engineer, Epic Developer Assistant

Cary, NCOnsiteFull TimePrincipalPosted 1 month agoVisa sponsorship available

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Required skills

LLM-driven agents
Unreal Engine
engine-side C++/Python tooling
editor scripting
cloud-hosted agent harness
LLM system design
game engine internals
C++
Python
web backend language

Nice to have

LLM capabilities
tool use
multi-agent orchestration
context management
RAG
prompt engineering

Role summary

Epic Games is seeking a Principal AI Engineer to integrate AI, specifically LLMs, into Unreal Engine. This role involves designing and building LLM-driven agents and tools within the engine, architecting cloud services to mediate between LLMs and the engine, and working across the full stack (engine tooling, cloud backend, web UI). The ideal candidate will have a strong software engineering background, experience with game engines (Unreal Engine preferred), practical LLM product experience, and proficiency in C++ and Python. This hybrid role offers comprehensive benefits and a collaborative environment.

WHAT MAKES US EPIC?

At the core of Epic’s success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it’s building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we’re always innovating.

Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We’re constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development.

ENGINEERING - UNREAL ENGINE

What We Do

Unreal-powered projects have been on the bleeding edge of real-time entertainment for over 20 years. Our team of engineering experts are always innovating to improve the tools and technology that empower content developers worldwide.

What You'll Do

We're looking for a Principal Al Engineer who builds products that integrate Al into Unreal Engine. You'll design and ship the full stack of systems that let LLMs act inside the engine (from end to end, not just a single layer), bringing depth in game engine architecture, cloud services, and how LLMs actually work.

In this role, you will

Design and build LLM-driven agents and tools that operate directly inside Unreal Engine, including engine-side C++/Python tooling and editor scripting

Architect and extend the cloud-hosted agent harness, services, and database that mediate between LLMs and the engine

Work across the full stack (engine tooling, cloud backend, and the web UI used to drive and monitor agents) to ship end-to-end features

Evaluate and integrate emerging LLM capabilities (tool use, multi-agent orchestration, context management) into Epic's engine and pipeline tooling

Define technical direction for the reliability, safety, and evaluation of LLM-driven engine automation

Partner closely with engine, tools, and backend engineers, and mentor others on both game engine internals and LLM system design

What we're looking for

Strong programming background with hands-on experience in a game engine (Unreal Engine strongly preferred), including engine architecture and tooling/editor scripting

Practical experience building or shipping products powered by LLMs (agents, tool-calling, RAG, prompt/context engineering), or a strong conceptual understanding of how LLMs work

Experience with cloud-native services and infrastructure: web APIs, databases, and service architecture and deployment

Excellent programming skills across C++ (engine-side) and Python and/or a web backend language

Experience in the games industry or equivalent, developing interactive entertainment products

Ability to work full-stack and reason about tradeoffs across engine code, backend services, and a web front end

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with a BS/MS in Computer Science or a related field

EPIC JOB + EPIC BENEFITS = EPIC LIFE

Our intent is to cover all things that are medically necessary and improve the quality of life. We pay 100% of the premiums for both you and your dependents. Our coverage includes Medical, Dental, a Vision HRA, Long Term Disability, Life Insurance & a 401k with competitive match. We also offer a robust mental well-being program through Modern Health, which provides free therapy and coaching for employees & dependents. Throughout the year we celebrate our employees with events and company-wide paid breaks. We offer unlimited PTO and sick time and recognize individuals for 7 years of employment with a paid sabbatical.

ABOUT US

Epic Games is a leading interactive entertainment company. For over 30 years we've been making award-winning games and engine technology that empowers others to make visually stunning games and 3D content that bring environments to life like never before. Epic's award-winning Unreal Engine technology not only provides game developers the ability to build high-fidelity, interactive experiences for PC, console, mobile, and VR, it is also a tool being embraced by content creators across a variety of industries such as media and entertainment, automotive, and architectural design. As we continue to build our Engine technology and develop remarkable games, we strive to build teams of world-class talent.

Like what you hear? Come be a part of something Epic!

Epic Games deeply values diverse teams and an inclusive work culture, and we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. Learn more about our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy here.

Note to Recruitment Agencies: Epic does not accept any unsolicited resumes or approaches from any unauthorized third party (including recruitment or placement agencies) (i.e., a third party with whom we do not have a negotiated and validly executed agreement). We will not pay any fees to any unauthorized third party. Further details on these matters can be found here.

Sample Epic Games interview questions

1
Design a system for managing a distributed task queue.
system designmedium
2
Construct a distributed chaos engineering management system.
system designmedium
3
Build a distributed system for automating the CI/CD pipeline.
system designmedium
4
Clone an Undirected Graph Clone an undirected graph. Input: adjList = [[]] Output: [[]] Explanation: Creates a new, deeply cloned graph containing only one single node with zero connected neighbors.
codingmedium
5
Maximum Depth of an N-ary Tree Find the maximum depth of an N-ary tree. Input: root = [1,null,2,null,3,null,4] Output: 4 Explanation: The tree is essentially a straight line, requiring a traversal that reaches a maximum depth of 4 layers.
codingmedium

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