Principal AI Engineer

Candy Crush Saga | KingCraftData, Analytics & StrategyJob DescriptionPrincipal AI/ML Engineer – Decision AutomationAre you motivated by building the shared decisioning foundations for how a live game learns, experiments, and adapts at scale? Join King as a Principal AI/ML Engineer in the Decision Automation team for Candy Crush Saga. In this role, you will help turn fragmented AI/ML and decisioning approaches into scalable, production‐grade systems that support faster experimentation, safer adaptation, and more coherent player experiences across the game. This is a hands-on senior technical leadership role. The RoleYou'll join the Decision Automation team within Candy Crush Saga: a cross‐functional AI/ML team working closely with product, analytics, engineering, game teams, and central platform partners to enable faster, smarter, and more player‐centric decisions across the game. This role is central to helping define and build the shared architecture needed to make decision automation more scalable, reliable, and reusable across Candy. The team works across areas such asCausal inference and simulation capabilities usable by product teamsGeneralized automated decisioning systems across multiple game featuresOrchestration across ML systems to reduce conflicting treatments and coordination overheadWith hundreds of millions of players, the systems you help shape will operate at significant scale and influence core player‐facing decisions across Candy Crush Saga.

What You'll Do
Influence technical direction across Candy Crush Saga in AI/ML and decisioning through credibility, clarity, and delivery Stay hands‐on through meaningful production coding, technical prototyping, and implementation work on critical pathsSet a high bar for production AI/ML engineering, including reliability, observability, maintainability, and quality of executionMentor senior engineers and raise the standard of technical judgment, design quality, and cross‐team collaborationLead the shared architecture for AI/ML and automated decisioning systems used across multiple components in Candy Crush SagaHelp unify fragmented approaches into reusable technical foundations that improve consistency, speed, and scalabilityPartner with product and game teams to turn high‐value opportunities into reusable capabilities rather than one‐off solutionsWhat You BringDeep AI/ML ExpertiseDeep experience building and shipping production AI/ML systems with meaningful business impactStrong applied expertise in areas such as personalization and causal inferenceTrack record of connecting AI/ML methodology with real production guardrails, constraints and operational useTechnical LeadershipProven ability to influence technical direction across teams through credibility, clarity, and executionExperience defining shared patterns, technical standards, or architectural direction in complex environmentsAbility to lead senior‐level technical discussions with substance and precisionCommunication and CollaborationExcellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical ideas clearly to both technical and non‐technical audiencesProven ability to influence across departments and align teams around shared technical directionStrong mentoring capability, especially with senior engineers and technical leadersComfortable representing technical work in high‐visibility forums, internally and externallyProduct and Cross-Functional CollaborationAble to shape product bets through technical insight and co‐create reusable capabilities with cross‐functional partnersEffective working across engineering, analytics, product, and platform teamsStrong judgment in translating business goals into scalable technical systemsNice to HaveExperience with large‐scale experimentation platforms, personalization systems, or decisioning infrastructureFamiliarity with game technology, player‐facing optimization, or content adaptation systemsExperience reducing fragmented or bespoke ML workflows into shared technical foundationsLocationsStockholm, Barcelona and LondonAbout KingWith a mission of Making the World Playful, King is a leading interactive entertainment company for the mobile world with more than 20 years of history of delivering some of the world's most iconic games in the mobile gaming industry, including the world-famous Candy Crush franchise, as well as other mobile titles such as Farm Heroes Saga. Around 200 million people play a King game every month. King, part of Microsoft (NASDAQ: