Staff QA Engineer, Riot Games
Riot Client, Publishing Platform
$133.7-188k
+ Incentive compensation + Equity
Player-focused game development platform
Open for applications
Player-focused game development platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$133.7-188k
+ Incentive compensation + Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To be the most player-focused game company in the world.
Role
Who you are
- 8+ years in QA/Quality Engineering with 3+ years leading quality for multi-team, multi-quarter programs
- 2+ years hands-on with Playwright (TypeScript/JavaScript), including framework design, CI integration, and flake triage
- Strong understanding of desktop application testing (Windows/macOS): installers, patching systems, auto-updaters, OS-level constraints, and network variability
- Proficiency with Jira (defect lifecycle) and Zephyr or similar test management tools
- Solid grasp of JavaScript/TypeScript and familiarity with React or web-tech-based shells (e.g., Electron/CEF-style UIs)
- Experience embedding with developers/design/release teams; comfortable driving cross-discipline decisions and trade-offs
- Fluency with Git and CI/CD systems (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions) and artifact/report publishing
- Demonstrated QA leadership of mixed internal + vendor teams; ability to set direction, review work, and hold partners to SLAs
Desirable
- Proven QA leadership across multi-quarter programs and multiple work streams; sets direction, drives decisions, and holds teams (internal + vendor) to quality bars and SLAs
- Automation ecosystem exposure—Playwright Test runner, Cypress or similar; basic API testing and contract testing experience a plus
- CI/CD fluency—integrated tests into pipelines (parallelization, sharding, retries, flake detection), owned dashboards/alerts, and made data-backed go/no-go calls
- Desktop application testing on Windows/macOS (installers, patching/auto-update, OS permissions, network/offline modes, recovery/rollback)
- Strong JS/TS fundamentals and familiarity with React or web-tech shells (Electron/CEF); able to review test code for reliability and maintainability
- Quality telemetry & metrics—defines/uses KPIs (escape rate, stability, pass rate, MTTR/MTTT) to guide prioritization and drive continuous improvement
- Risk-based testing & strategy—threat modeling, failure-mode coverage, contract tests/mocks for service and integration boundaries (e.g., auth/social)
- Cross-team collaboration with Engineering, Product, Design, Release, and external partners; excellent written/verbal, executive-ready status & decision logs
- Vendor stewardship—scope/SLAs, playbooks, coaching, and performance management for partner QA teams
- Tooling familiarity—Jira/Zephyr (or equivalents), Git, and CI/CD systems (Jenkins/GitHub Actions/CircleCI)
- Performance, accessibility, and localization awareness for desktop client experiences; comfortable integrating these checks into pipelines
- Incident response experience—verification, root cause partnering, and hardening via rollback/feature-flag strategies
What the job involves
- As a Staff Quality Engineer on the Riot Client team, you will own the quality of desktop software that millions of players worldwide use to authenticate, install, patch, discover and launch Riot's games
- Your work will be players' first touchpoint with the wide range of experiences that Riot has to offer - including League of Legends, VALORANT, Wild Rift, Teamfight Tactics, Legends of Runeterra, and beyond
- You will allow players to discover new games from the Riot ecosystem, unlock content, and promote overall deeper engagement
- You’ll embed with engineering, design, and production partners to champion quality end-to-end—from planning and requirements through implementation, release, and live operations
- You will lead quality strategy and execution across multiple projects and two team pods, ensuring risk-based test planning, automation, and release gating are applied at every stage of the SDLC
- You’ll collaborate with other Quality Leads across Player Experience to develop scalable solutions and shared standards that improve signal and efficiency across teams
- This role reports to a Senior QA Manager
- Own the end-to-end test strategy and master test plan for RC desktop features across Windows/macOS, including risk models, entry/exit criteria, and release readiness signals
- Drive the end-to-end test automation strategy for RC using Playwright (TS/JS)—set and enforce Test automation standards for selectors, fixtures, test data, and environment orchestration; mentor engineers and review test code to raise signal quality
- Drive CI/CD quality signal and pipeline health—integrate and scale suites (parallelization, sharding, retries, flake detection), own dashboards and alerting, and make data-backed go/no-go calls tied to stability SLOs and release criteria
- Lead cross-team collaboration (Engineering, Product, Design, Release, game teams, external partners) to land joint test plans, manage dependencies, and resolve risks/blockers, and making clear data-backed go/no-go decisions
- Guide and review manual, exploratory, and deep-dive testing where automation isn’t economical; ensure coverage of failure modes, recovery, and rollback paths
- Establish quality telemetry (pass rates, defect escape, stability, performance) and drive continuous improvement with data-backed experiments
- Define and enforce standards and playbooks for bug quality, repro, triage, and regression control; improve cycle time and defect removal efficiency
- Provide technical leadership to internal and vendor QA (mentorship, code reviews, pairing, test design workshops)
- Champion desktop-specific quality: installers/auto-update, patching, OS permissions, network/offline modes, localization, accessibility, and performance
- Secure quality at integration boundaries (services, auth, social) via mocks, contract tests, and environment strategy
- Collaborate with Eng leaders to incident response (root cause analysis, containment, verification) and harden rollback/feature-flag strategies
- Collaborate with different disciplines in order to understand their goals and incorporate them into decisions that improve quality
- Instruct junior QA external testers in their day-to-day tasks
- Hold the team accountable to meeting quality standards
Our take
Riot Games has grown into one of the world’s most prominent online and mobile game developers, due in large part to the success of its 2009 flagship title League of Legends which hosts over 120M users every month.
Riot is riding the wave of online gaming growth, having made a well timed switch from PC-only into mobile-based gaming, as capitalizing on the rising popularity of esports, with the League of Legends World Championships one of the most watched events in the space.
While expanding its portfolio with new titles has played a role in Riot's evolution, the company's continued success is more firmly rooted in the enduring strength of League of Legends itself. Riot has built a vast ecosystem around the game, from its global eSports tournaments tand regional leagues to its numerous brand partnerships and sponsorships. The League of Legends World Championship in particular remains a cultural and commercial powerhouse, drawing massive viewership and sustaining global engagement. And since its acquisition by Tencent in 2011, Riot has also expanded its presence in Asia, opening new studios in Shanghai and beyond, to further strengthen its site to markets where competitive gaming and eSports are deeply embedded.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
24% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Sep 2009
$8m
SERIES C
Jul 2008
$7m
EARLY VC
Total funding: $15m
Company benefits
- Healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you as well as your spouse/domestic partner and children.
- Family Care: Life insurance, parental leave, plus short and long-term disability.
- Open Paid Time Off: In addition to holidays, a 2-week end of year break, and a 1-week mid-year break, Rioters are trusted to take the time they need throughout the year.
- Retirement: Riot matches retirement contributions so you can continue to play games long after you retire.
- Play Fund: Riot’s annual play fund allows Rioters to broaden their knowledge of the games that matter to players and the community.
- Donation Matching: Riot matches donations of time and money to nonprofits to double down on support.
Company HQ
Sawtelle, Los Angeles, CA
Leadership
Brandon Beck
(Co-Founder & Co-Chairman)Prior to co-founding Riot Games in 2006, Brandon was a Management Consultant at Bain & Company.
Marc Merrill
(Co-Founder, CPO & Co-Chairman)After a degree at the University of Southern California, they worked as a U.S. Bank Analyst and a Manager of Advanstar Communications. They co-founded Riot Games with Brandon in September 2006, alongside being a Principal of NaHCo3 since 2016.
A. Dylan Jadeja
(CEO)Dylan joined the Riot team in 2011 as CFO and COO, becoming CEO in 2023. Prior to this, he spent 7 years at Goldman Sachs as a VP and nearly 4 years at A.T. Kearney as a Senior Associate.
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