As an R&D Programmer within Ubi MTL’s La Forge, your role will be threefold: you will participate to research prototypes alongside research scientists, contribute to transforming proof-of-concept prototypes to production-ready technologies and improve how people work together within your team.

Your technical expertise paired with your communication skills will be invaluable in all that you do. On the research side of your job, you will work closely with scientists to create and iterate on research prototypes. On the transformation side, you will collaborate with various technical partners to transform prototypes into minimum viable products, easing the hand-off to technology products or game development teams across Ubisoft in collaboration with production teams directly. Finally, on the improvement side, you will create and maintain prototyping tools, standardize processes, and share best practices to increase efficiency at La Forge.

At La Forge, the character team focuses on research with applied Machine Learning and other data driven techniques in order to meet the challenges of scalability, diversity & richer player interaction for our animated characters. As illustrated with contributions such as Faceshifter, Soundmatching and Choreograph to help scale for animating a character to generating faces, La Forge has a history of a leading in this area.

We also offer a large variety of interesting challenges in porting our advancements directly into production, learning their limits and improving them. Contributing to both academia and productions, you will help create a new generation of games, production processes and unique experiences for the players.

About La Forge

La Forge bridges academia and video game production, bringing together scholars and industry experts to facilitate technical prototyping based on the latest academic progress. Together, we explore subjects such as rendering, animation, AI, audio, and physics to tackle some of the biggest challenges in art and tech in gaming. Dedicated to innovation, we aim to accelerate research and development through prototyping to help content creators build increasingly believable worlds and better understand our players.

What you’ll do

In a first-class interdisciplinary team that covers all fields from capture, data management and in-game rendering aspects of characters, from a modelling, animation and voice generation standpoint, you will:

• Design, code, and integrate research-based prototypes in game engines & internal middleware.
• Work closely with research scientists and production leads.
• Push prototypes to minimal viable products for game development teams.
• Partner with product teams to release complete product packages that meet production quality criteria (robustness, documentation, completeness, and performance).
• Develop and maintain prototyping tools and infrastructure to facilitate collaboration between researchers.
• Encourage standardization of frameworks, libraries, etc. among R&D teams + recommend and share best practices.

What you bring

• An undergraduate or master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent
• At least 3 years of software development experience or related experience (with a focus on machine learning or in the gaming industry being a huge plus)
• Proficiency in Python & C++
• Experience using game engines (e.g., Unity, Unreal or equivalents)
• Experience with deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch or Tensor Flow)
• Knowledge of Machine Learning (Techniques & Deployment of model)
• Knowledge in applying Machine Learning or other related data driven methods to solve character creation and animation
• A highly collaborative and solution-oriented spirit
• Curiosity and critical thinking
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and presentation skills
• A desire to innovate, take risks, and to learn from your mistakes and from your team members in the video game industry & adapt to its (constantly evolving) rhythm

What to send our way

• Your CV highlighting your education, experience, and skills

About us

Ubisoft’s 20,000 team members, working across more than 30 countries around the world, are bound by a common mission: enrich players’ lives with original and memorable gaming experiences. Their commitment and talent have brought to life many acclaimed franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Just Dance, Rainbow Six, and many more to come.  

Ubisoft is an equal opportunity employer that believes diverse backgrounds and perspectives are key to creating worlds where both players and teams can thrive and express themselves.  

When you join Ubi MTL, you discover a workplace that sparks inspiration and connection. We offer a collaborative space that provides career advancement, a host of learning opportunities, and meaningful benefits centred on well-being. 

If you are excited about solving game-changing challenges, harnessing cutting-edge technologies, and pushing the boundaries of entertainment, we invite you to join us on our journey and help us create the unknown. 

At Ubisoft, you can come as you are. We embrace diversity in all its forms. We’re committed to fostering a work environment that is inclusive and respectful of all differences.