Principal Software Engineer, Data - League of Legends

Engineers at Riot master their craft by building, launching, and operating games that delight players all over the world. As an engineer on League Data Central, you will build systems that use data to help balance games, improve the player experience through personalization, detect behaviors for punishments and rewards, and more. You will collaborate with engineers, analysts, producers, and game designers across all aspects of the game. Our work ranges from building traditional data pipelines and warehouses, to running large-scale distributed systems, to designing and operating novel machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities.

League Studio supports game development on League of Legends, Wild Rift, and Teamfight Tactics. The League Data Central initiative falls under the Tech Foundations business unit within League Studio, providing data and algorithms support for all League Studio games. As Principal Software Engineer on League Data Central, you will be the chief architect and tech leader for the initiative. You will report to the initiative Engineering Manager and own the initiative's technical vision, strategy, and technical delivery. You will work with tech leads on our and partner teams to make sure teams' technical visions, architectures, and designs align with player needs and our overall technical strategy and goals. You will also collaborate with other Initiative Tech Leads on League Studio to inform standards, strategy, and best practices.

Responsibilities:

• Develop the technical strategy for data products and warehousing on League Studio
• Ensure all the teams within League Data Central are developing according to our standards and shared goals
• Contribute to and support systematic practices across League Studio that strengthen and grow technical quality
• Iterate with Product and Design to share tech vision and goals, balance for technical constraints and drive understanding of how they interact with product decision-making
• Identify opportunities for tech to improve the product and build alignment toward sustainable development
• Ad hoc project support for scoped projects with tech risk or tech related hot spots
• Participate in team on-call rotation for live support
• Provide leadership and coaching to team technical leads
• Participate in interviewing and act as an essential member for hiring decisions

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience as a software engineer across the full software development lifecycle
• 3+ years experience as tech lead for large scoped products/teams
• Experience shipping and supporting machine learning algorithms in production services
• Experience with big data processing, storage, transport, and orchestration systems
• Experience developing large systems from scratch, including gathering requirements, designing scalable, production-ready architecture, breaking down the project into smaller work items, and leading the development across multiple contributors
• Experience coaching those around you across all roles, and mentoring mid and senior level engineers
• Experience working with members outside of your immediate organization to achieve team/organization goals
• Experience implementing software engineering best practices within your team, including design reviews, coding standards, code reviews, tools improvements, source control management, build processes, and testing
• Mastery of industry-standard tools, frameworks, and practices for their language(s) of choice

Desired Qualifications:

• Professional or other experience working with game engines

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about the experiences of players, this could be the role for you!

Our Perks:

Riot has a focus on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy, in addition to other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner and children and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in gaming

(Los Angeles only) Base salary range between $203,000 USD - $283,000 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.

It's our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law, including the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history (LAMC 189.00).