Senior Machine Learning Engineer

About the role

You will design production machine learning pipelines that translate high-level product goals into reliable deployed models serving the Epic ecosystem. The role owns the full lifecycle of applied research, from intake to deployment, for systems that support developers and interactive experiences. You will evaluate bot action modeling strategies and build systems that empower teams across games and interactive media. The position requires experimental validation, integration with engine tooling, and iterative improvement of shipped services. You will partner closely with gameplay and engine teams to align machine learning outputs with demanding product milestones. This role assesses vision-language-action experiments targeted at NPC behavior, world modeling, and interactive agents. You will implement reinforcement learning pipelines featuring reward design, policy optimization, and scalable training environments. Finally, you will monitor deployed models in live environments and iterate on safety, stability, and ongoing effectiveness.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design intake workflows for new data channels that feed game behavior models and automation systems.
• Build production-ready machine learning systems for bot training, content moderation, and QA automation.
• Review model performance against game key performance indicators and recommend roadmap adjustments.
• Ship scalable inference services that integrate with engine tools and runtime environments.
• Partner with gameplay and engine teams to align machine learning outputs with product milestones.
• Assess vision-language-action experiments for NPC behavior, world modeling, and interactive agents.
• Implement reinforcement learning pipelines with reward design, policy optimization, and scalable training environments.
• Monitor deployed models in live environments and iterate on safety, stability, and effectiveness.
• Collaborate with data infrastructure teams to ensure pipelines are robust, observable, and efficient.
• Explore emerging techniques in generative modeling and their applicability to interactive entertainment problems.
• Contribute to technical documentation and knowledge sharing across the machine learning community at Epic.
• Optimize model performance and latency to meet stringent requirements of real-time game environments.
• Support on-call responsibilities for production services, driving incident response and rapid resolution.
• Mentor junior engineers and researchers, fostering a culture of rigorous experimentation and best practices.
• Evaluate third-party tools and libraries for potential integration into the machine learning stack.

Requirements

You hold a PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics or related field, or bring 3+ years of relevant industry experience. Hands-on expertise in deep learning for gaming, vision-language-action models, and reinforcement learning agent deployment is mandatory. You program in Python using numpy, scipy, sklearn, pytorch, and associated machine learning tools. Practical experience with engine workflows and collaborative agile ways of working is required. Strong software engineering practices, including testing, debugging, and version control, are essential for success in this role. You must be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment with evolving priorities and ambiguous problem spaces. Excellent communication skills are necessary to align with cross-functional stakeholders and articulate technical trade-offs. A proven track record of delivering scalable machine learning systems in production is expected. You should be comfortable reading research papers and translating novel ideas into working prototypes. Adherence to Epic's quality standards and processes is a non-negotiable part of this position.

Nice to have

Experience with local deployment and post-training of open weights models, plus scalable training environments for agents.

Practical notes

We pay 100% for benefits except for PMI (for dependents). Our current benefits package includes pension, private medical insurance, health care cash plan, dental insurance, disability and life insurance, critical illness, cycle to work scheme, flu shots, health checks, and meals. We also offer a robust mental well-being program through Modern Health, which provides free therapy and coaching for employees & dependents.

Epic Games is a leading interactive entertainment company. For over 30 years we have 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 powers experiences across consoles, PCs, and mobile devices.

What you'll do

Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland.