Production-Ready Unreal Engine MMO AI & Conversational NPC System

I am looking for an experienced Unreal Engine C++ AI developer/engineer to build a complete, production-ready AI system for a large-scale multiplayer game.

This is not a prototype, proof of concept, architecture-only task, or partial framework. I need a fully functional AI system that can be integrated into the game early in development and expanded over time as additional gameplay systems are created.

The AI system must be modular, persistent, server-authoritative, scalable, database-backed, and designed so that future characters, objects, vehicles, structures, factions, environments, gameplay systems, and other world elements can be connected to the AI without requiring the core system to be rebuilt.

The system will involve multiple layers of AI, including individual NPC intelligence, group/squad behavior, larger organizational or faction-level intelligence, and background/strategic simulation. Different levels of AI complexity will be required depending on whether an entity is actively interacting with players, nearby, distant, or being simulated in the background.

AI entities must be capable of perceiving and understanding relevant information from the game world, maintaining short-term and persistent long-term memory, storing and retrieving information from a database, forming relationships and knowledge about players and other entities, making decisions, pursuing goals, and adapting their behavior based on previous events and interactions.

A major component of the project will also be a complete AI voice and communication system. NPCs must eventually be capable of holding dynamic spoken conversations with players, understanding player communication, remembering relevant information from previous conversations, responding contextually, communicating with other AI entities, and connecting conversations to actual gameplay behavior.

For example, information communicated during a conversation should be capable of influencing an NPC’s decisions, objectives, relationships, memory, movement, or interactions with the world. AI should ultimately be able to understand appropriate world context and interact with compatible world objects or systems as a consequence of player communication or its own decision-making.

The system must be designed so new world objects and gameplay features can expose information, capabilities, interactions, and state to the AI through standardized interfaces rather than requiring hard-coded AI changes for every new feature.

The project should include a functional persistence and memory system, AI/world interaction framework, perception and knowledge systems, decision-making, communication, navigation integration, scalable AI simulation, debugging tools, performance monitoring, testing, and clear documentation for future developers.

Because many final gameplay systems are still under development, temporary test characters, objects, environments, and interactions may be used to fully demonstrate and validate the AI system. These test assets can be temporary, but the underlying AI implementation must be production-quality and intended for use in the final game.

The architecture must also account for large-scale multiplayer requirements and future distributed/server-based world simulation. I am specifically looking for someone with strong experience in Unreal Engine C++, AI systems architecture, scalable game AI, persistence/databases, networking, and ideally advanced conversational or voice AI integration.

More detailed AI behavior, gameplay requirements, internal systems, and proprietary design information will only be provided to candidates I am seriously considering for the project.

When responding, please include:

* Your relevant Unreal Engine C++ and AI experience
* Examples of advanced AI systems you have previously built
* Experience with persistent NPC memory or database-backed AI
* Experience with multiplayer/server-authoritative AI
* Experience with scalable or large-population NPC simulation
* Experience with voice, conversational AI, LLMs, speech recognition, or text-to-speech systems
* How you would approach keeping the AI modular enough to integrate with future gameplay systems
* Your estimated development hours and timeline for delivering a production-ready first version

I am looking for someone capable of taking responsibility for the complete working system rather than only producing an initial architecture or technical prototype.