Engineer - Machine Learning United Kingdom

Play Station isn’t just the Best Place to Play — it’s also the Best Place to Work. Today, we’re recognized as a global leader in entertainment producing The Play Station family of products and services including Play Station®5, Play Station®4, Play Station®VR, Play Station®Plus, acclaimed Play Station software titles from Play Station Studios, and more.

Play Station also strives to create an inclusive environment that empowers employees and embraces diversity. We welcome and encourage everyone who has a passion and curiosity for innovation, technology, and play to explore our open positions and join our growing global team.

The Play Station brand falls under Sony Interactive Entertainment, a wholly‑owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation.

Location:
London, UK

The Gaming, Developer & Future Technology (GDFT) group are Play Station's technology experts. We research and develop innovative technologies that push the boundaries of play, helping game developers make the best games on Play Station.

As we continue to push the boundaries of technology, we are seeking a talented Machine Learning Engineer at the intersection of machine learning, computer vision, & video game development to join our dynamic R&D team.

Our team is dedicated to advancing imitation learning to build intelligent agents capable of playing complex games. In this role, you will leverage foundation models and emerging techniques to drive research forward, deliver innovative solutions for customers, and contribute to publications that shape the future of gaming.

As a Machine Learning Engineer
, you will be a key contributor to our research team, supporting the technical lead in driving technical excellence and innovation. You will be responsible for designing, implementing, and optimising novel machine learning models and algorithms to perform challenging and diverse tasks. You will perform a central role in a highly collaborative and fast‑moving environment where innovation and creativity are encouraged.

• Imitation Learning Development
  :
  Design, develop and deliver novel machine learning techniques to solve diverse tasks in game development, incorporating foundation models and high‑level reasoning into the imitation process.
• Research and Innovation
  :
  Contribute to the authorship of team research papers, presenting at relevant conferences.
• Data Analysis
  :
  Perform data analysis and cleaning to uncover insights and patterns.
• Collaboration and Creativity
  :
  Work with cross‑functional teams to deploy machine learning models in production environments, solving issues and ensuring scalability and performance.
• Communication
  :
  Present findings to stakeholders, communicating complex technical issues to both technical and non‑technical colleagues.
• Continuous Learning
  :
  Stay current with the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence research, attending top‑tier conferences and communicating information across the team.
• Prototyping
  :
  Quickly prototype new ideas and technologies to evaluate relevance and performance.
• Inclusive Culture
  :
  Contribute to maintaining a culture of innovation, curiosity, creativity, and continuous learning within the team.

• Education
  :
  Master’s degree in computer science, electrical engineering, robotics, statistics, mathematics, or a related field. A PhD is preferred, but can be substituted with relevant work experience.
• Domain Expertise
  : 2+ years in machine learning (in industry or academia) with published research papers and proven expertise in Imitation Learning
  , Reinforcement Learning or Representation Learning
  .
• Foundation Models
  :
  Hands‑on experience with foundation models at the intersection of language, vision, and action
  , such as multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs),
  Vision‑Language Models (VLMs), and Vision‑Language‑Action Models (VLAs).
• Parameter‑Efficient Fine‑Tuning
  :
  
  Experience with
  PEFT methods, including LoRA
  , for adapting large models efficiently.
• Transformer Architectures
  :
  Familiarity with transformer architectures, generative models and knowledge distillation techniques for real‑time deployment in resource‑constrained environments.
• Programming
  :
  Proficiency in…