R&d Programmer Assistant

Company Description
**Ubisoft Annecy**

Founded in 1996, Ubisoft Annecy has developed many sagas, especially on Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed®, while focusing on multiplayer online and social aspects, and also on concrete game mandates such as Tom Clancy’s: The Division 2® and Ghost Recon Wildlands. We are now proud to have developed our own IP, Steep and more recently Riders Republic

On top of our AAA production, we are working on innovation with a technological expertise hub around the Snowdrop engine pipeline, and Technology Group in collaboration with Ubisoft Montreal.

Located in one of the most dynamic regions of France, our Ubisoft studio is settled between lake and mountains, in the middle of Annecy, also known as the Venice of the Alps, 30 minutes away from Geneva International Airport. Having a studio with perpetual growth, we are focusing on our team members' commitment and team work. Our ambition relies on innovation and excellence with an ultimate purpose: our players' satisfaction

**La Forge**

As Ubisoft’s research and development group, La Forge brings together experts from the industry and academic sector to prototype technological innovations and improve the game-making process. With this focus on applied research, we aim to fill the gap between theory and practice, while contributing to solving real-world problems through scientific publications.

**Job Description**:
Creating effective AI-controlled bots in video games remains an ongoing challenge. The conventional approach involves manually specifying a behavior tree that outlines the bot's actions and the conditions dictating transitions between behaviors. However, this method is labor-intensive and constrained by the behaviors we can pre-code. Consequently, there is a growing enthusiasm for leveraging AI techniques to streamline and enhance the process of bot creation

Reinforcement Learning is primarily concerned with creating algorithms that enable agents to autonomously acquire behaviors. The typical goal is to uncover an optimal policy that can address specific tasks, often defined by a reward function. Consequently, RL is well-suited for training bots to excel at well-defined objectives in video games, such as optimizing navigation speed, combat tactics, or target shooting.

However, it's important to note that the outcomes achieved through these techniques, while optimal, can sometimes yield behaviors that are highly artificial or lack credibility. In practice, we don't always want bots to be simply the best at a particular task; we desire them to exhibit a range of behaviors similar to human players, reflecting variety and adaptability

The primary aim of this internship is to develop novel algorithms that shift the focus from learning a single optimal policy to acquiring a distribution of policies, thereby capturing the diversity inherent in human behavior. This distribution will serve as a resource for game designers, enabling them to select

and incorporate a range of behaviors extracted from it into the game's bots or NPCs, enhancing the game's realism.

To extract this diversity of bot behaviors, we will leverage extensive datasets of player interactions. This approach recognizes that it is impractical to characterize the realism of behavior using a rigidly defined reward function. Instead, our developed models will rely on data-driven methods to discern what constitutes realism, allowing us to model a more authentic range of behaviors.

**Qualifications**:

- You are a last year student of an engineering school or a university research master
- You have solid knowledge in mathematics and computer science
- You have skills in machine learning, deep learning, or reinforcement learning, and have mobilized them using suitable Python libraries
- Your level of English allows you to work in an international team and to communicate easily with non-French speakers.

Additional Information

Ubisoft’s 20,000 team members, working across more than 30 countries around the world, are bound by a common mission to 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. If you are excited about solving game-changing challenges, cutting edge technologies, and pushing the boundaries of entertainment, we invite you to join our journey and help us create the unknown.

Ubisoft is committed to creating an inclusive work environment that reflects the diversity of our player community. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability status.

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