Design and implement behaviour and decision-making logic for simulated entities
pedestrians, vehicles, shipping, aircraft
in our C++ simulation engine
Integrate third-party simulation libraries and algorithms, maintaining enough intuition for their internals to combine them into a coherent system
Shape how simulation state and behaviour are partitioned across our distribution framework, designing for IPC, bandwidth and fidelity trade-offs up front rather than retrofitting them
Contribute across the web/sim boundary, extending REST services and the TypeScript/React front-end when features reach into them
Write design docs and run design reviews in your area, helping the team converge on technical direction quickly
Review peers' designs and code with care, and collaborate with Product and defence stakeholders to turn customer problems into feature shapes
Mentor teammates through pairing, code review and knowledge sharing
raising the team's capability in simulation craft, product-engineering practice, or defence knowledge
Deploy and support populAI on-site at customer exercises, integration hackathons and industry events
working issues live alongside users, and folding what you learn back into the product.

4+ years of software engineering experience
Experience working on behavioural or agent-based simulation of people, crowds or vehicles (e.g. game AI, VFX crowd simulation, industrial human behaviour simulation, or defence CGF)
Strong C++ for performance-sensitive, real-time systems
Working knowledge of spatial data structures, path planning, decision modelling, and physical modelling of vehicle movement
Ability to reason about distributed simulation design
IPC, bandwidth, and how to split a simulation domain across processes without breaking its behaviour
Ability to move comfortably between languages and layers of the stack
A communicative, proactive style
visible in discussions, willing to challenge and be challenged, and able to draw contributions out of teammates
A product engineering mindset: energised by understanding customer problems and shipping things that create real value
Comfortable multiplying yourself with AI-assisted development workflows
Able to obtain and maintain UK Security Vetted status to at least SC level.
Prepared to attend our office in Shoreditch at least once a week.

Hybrid working with 1 day per week in our fantastic office in Shoreditch, London
Private Health Insurance
Enhanced pension scheme
Enhanced parental leave
3 extra days off at Christmas (on top of our standard 25)
L&D budget
Regularly scheduled socials
Share options

Simulation Software Engineer

Key skills