Electronic Arts Inc

Senior AI Game Designer - American Football

Electronic Arts Inc$114K — $156K *
Consumer Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of experience developing gameplay AI for shipped console or PC games.
  • Experience with modern game engines like Unreal Engine, Frostbite, or Unity.
  • Strong understanding of AI techniques such as Behavior Trees, State Machines, and Decision Trees.
  • Experience implementing navigation, pathfinding, and tactical decision-making systems.
  • Excellent problem-solving and debugging skills.
  • Strong collaboration and communication abilities within teams.

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement gameplay AI using Unreal Engine and its systems.
  • Build decision-making systems with traditional game AI techniques.
  • Collaborate with engineers and designers to create authentic game behaviors.
  • Tune AI behaviors through playtesting and telemetry.
  • Debug and optimize AI systems for performance.
  • Work across disciplines to deliver high-quality gameplay features.

Benefits

  • 3 weeks of vacation per year to start.
  • 10 days of paid sick leave annually.
  • Maternity and parental leave with paid top-up benefits.
  • Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
  • Life and disability insurance.
  • Retirement plan options for full-time employees.
Full Job Description
Description & Requirements

Location: Orlando, FL or Victoria, BC (Hybrid onsite)

Description
EA SPORTS is one of the leading sports entertainment brands in the world, with top-selling videogame franchises, award-winning interactive technology, fan programs, and cross-platform digital experiences. EA SPORTS creates connected experiences that ignite the emotion of sport through industry-leading sports video games, including Madden NFL football, FC Soccer, NHL4 hockey, and EA SPORTS UFC .

We're building an exciting new American Football title and are looking for a Senior AI Technical Designer to help create intelligent, authentic, and engaging gameplay experiences.

Reporting to a Game Design Director, you will work at the intersection of game design and engineering. You'll build and tune gameplay AI that brings players, teams, and football strategy to life. You'll collaborate with gameplay engineers, designers, animators, artists, and producers to deliver responsive, believable AI that enhances every moment on the field.

Responsibilities
  • Design, implement, and tune gameplay AI using modern game engine AI systems, with a preference for experience in Unreal Engine including Behavior Trees, Blackboards, AI Perception, Navigation, Environmental Query System (EQS), and Blueprint scripting.
  • Build decision-making systems using traditional game AI techniques such as Behavior Trees, State Machines, Decision Trees, Utility AI, and other data-driven gameplay systems.
  • Partner with Gameplay Engineers and Designers to create authentic football behaviors gameplay.
  • Tune AI behaviors through playtesting, gameplay telemetry, and iterative balancing to deliver engaging and competitive gameplay.
  • Debug, optimize, and refine AI systems while helping improve designer workflows and development tools.
  • Collaborate across gameplay, animation, engineering, art, and production to deliver high-quality gameplay features.


Qualifications
  • 5+ years of experience developing gameplay AI for shipped console or PC games.
  • Experience building gameplay AI systems using a modern game engine such as Unreal Engine, Frostbite, Unity, or a proprietary engine.
  • Experience with Unreal Engine 5 strongly desired
  • Strong understanding of traditional game AI techniques including Behavior Trees, Blackboards, State Machines, Decision Trees, Utility AI, or similar gameplay AI architectures.
  • Experience implementing navigation, pathfinding, perception, and tactical decision-making systems.
  • Strong problem-solving, debugging, and gameplay tuning skills.
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills within multidisciplinary development teams.


Bonus
  • Experience shipping games developed in Unreal Engine 5.
  • Experience developing sports games or team-based gameplay systems.
  • Familiarity with Unreal Engine Gameplay Ability System (GAS).
  • Experience using Blueprint and working alongside C++ gameplay engineers.
  • Experience creating AI debugging, visualization, or authoring tools.
  • Knowledge of American football strategy, formations, player responsibilities, or sports simulation gameplay.


Pay Transparency - North America

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The ranges listed below are what EA in good faith expects to pay applicants for this role in these locations at the time of this posting. If you reside in a different location, a recruiter will advise on the applicable range and benefits. Pay offered will be determined based on a number of relevant business and candidate factors (e.g. education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, or business needs).

PAY RANGES

* British Columbia (depending on location e.g. Vancouver vs. Victoria) *$114,300 - $156,200 CAD

Pay is just one part of the overall compensation at EA.

For Canada, we offer a package of benefits including vacation (3 weeks per year to start), 10 days per year of sick time, paid top-up to EI/QPIP benefits up to 100% of base salary when you welcome a new child (12 weeks for maternity, and 4 weeks for parental/adoption leave), extended health/dental/vision coverage, life insurance, disability insurance, retirement plan to regular full-time employees. Certain roles may also be eligible for bonus and equity.

Post To

External careers site, Internal careers site

LinkedInID

74884070

About Electronic Arts Inc

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The company develops and publishes games, content, and online services for consoles, mobile devices, and personal computers. EA's portfolio includes popular franchises such as FIFA, Madden NFL, The Sims, and Battlefield. The company was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.
Learn more about Electronic Arts Inc
Size
12,900 employees
Market Cap
$33.3 billion
Industry
Net Income
$1.1 billion
Founded
1982
5 Year Trend
+7.6%
Revenue
$5.6 billion
NASDAQ

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