Staff Software Engineer, AI Authoring

Unity Technologies•Mountain View, CA

About The Position

At Unity, we’re shaping the future of real-time 3D by applying AI to revolutionize how games are created and experienced. From intelligent authoring tools to new ways of interacting with content, we’re building the next generation of pipelines that enable faster, more immersive, and more efficient 3D game development. We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our AI Authoring Experience group. In this role, you will be a technical pillar for the department, overseeing the architectural integrity of our AI-powered workflows. You won't just contribute to the code; you will define the standards, influence the multi-year roadmap, and bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI research and production-ready Editor tools. This is a high-impact leadership role where your decisions will dictate how millions of developers interact with AI in the Unity ecosystem.

Requirements

Deep Technical Mastery: Extensive professional experience in software engineering, with a significant track record of leading the delivery of large-scale, complex distributed systems or developer tools.
Unity Expert: Deep internal knowledge of the Unity Editor, its C# APIs, and the underlying engine architecture.
Strategic Thinking: Proven ability to take a vague product vision and decompose it into a multi-phase technical execution plan.
Systems Thinker: You don't just fix bugs; you identify the systemic issues that cause them and design the abstractions to prevent them.
Exceptional Communicator: Ability to explain complex technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders and persuade executive leadership on technical directions.

Nice To Haves

AI/ML Infrastructure: Experience deploying Large Language Models (LLMs) or Diffusion models into production environments with a focus on latency and user experience.
Tooling Innovator: A history of contributing to open-source developer tools or building extensible plugin architectures.
Game Industry Veteran: Experience shipping high-end AAA or sophisticated indie titles, providing a deep empathy for the "creator's journey."
Compiler/Runtime Knowledge: Understanding of C++ or IL2CPP to optimize the bridge between AI runtimes and the Unity Editor.

Responsibilities

Architectural Leadership: Lead the design and multi-quarter technical strategy for AI Authoring tools, ensuring systems are extensible, performant, and seamlessly integrated into the Unity Editor.
Technical Vision: Look around corners to identify future technical bottlenecks or opportunities in AI Agent integration, setting the path for how Unity handles large-scale AI data and real-time inference within the authoring suite.
Engineering Excellence: Raise the bar for the entire organization by establishing best practices for code quality, testing, and CI/CD specifically for AI-driven features.
Mentorship & Influence: Act as a formal and informal mentor to Senior and Mid-level engineers; foster a culture of technical rigor and inclusive decision-making.
Cross-Functional Strategy: Partner with senior leadership, Product, and Design to align technical investments with business goals, making high-stakes "build vs. buy" or "pivot vs. persevere" recommendations.
Community & Ecosystem: Represent Unity’s AI initiatives in internal and external technical forums, ensuring our authoring APIs are robust for both internal teams and third-party developers.