Staff Software Engineer, AI Authoring

The opportunity
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.

What you'll be doing

• 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.

What we're looking for

• 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.

You might also have

• 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.

Additional information

• Relocation support is not available for this position

Benefits
At Unity, we want our team members to thrive. We offer a wide range of benefits designed to support well-being and work-life balance.

Please note: Benefits eligibility, specific offerings, and coverage vary based on the country and employment status.

While specific benefits vary, here are some of the ways we strive to take care of our eligible team members globally: Comprehensive health, life, and disability insurance | Commute subsidy | Employee stock ownership | Competitive retirement/pension plans | Generous vacation and personal days | Support for new parents through leave and family-care programs | Office food snacks | Mental Health and Wellbeing programs and support | Employee Resource Groups | Global Employee Assistance Program | Training and development programs | Volunteering and donation matching program

Life at Unity
Unity [NYSE: U] is the world’s leading game engine, powering play for more than 3 billion consumers each month. The top mobile games in the world, the most played PC indie titles, the most innovative console games, and virtually all of the top XR and Web Games are developed, deployed, and grown in Unity. Unity also enables teams across industries like automotive, manufacturing, and healthcare to design, simulate, and collaborate in 3D — closing the gap between ideas and reality. For more information, please visit www.unity.com.

Unity is a proud equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive, innovative environment and celebrate our employees across age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable law. Our differences are strengths that enable us to support the growing and evolving needs of our customers, partners, and collaborators. If you have a disability that means there are preparations or accommodations we can make to help ensure you have a comfortable and positive interview experience, please fill out this form to let us know.

This position requires the incumbent to have a sufficient knowledge of English to have professional verbal and written exchanges in this language since the performance of the duties related to this position requires frequent and regular communication with colleagues and partners located worldwide and whose common language is English.

Headhunters and recruitment agencies may not submit resumes/CVs through this website or directly to managers. Unity does not accept unsolicited headhunter and agency resumes. Unity will not pay fees to any third-party agency or company that does not have a signed agreement with Unity.

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*Note: Certain locations require a good faith disclosure of the base salary range for the role. The actual salary for the successful candidate may differ based on location, experience, and other job-related factors.

Gross pay salary
$157,800—$236,800 USD