Staff Software Engineer, Riot Games
Infrastructure
$192.5-269.4k
+ Incentive compensation + Equity
Player-focused game development platform
Be an early applicant
Player-focused game development platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$192.5-269.4k
+ Incentive compensation + Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To be the most player-focused game company in the world.
Role
Who you are
- 7+ years experience as a software engineer with focus on infrastructure or tooling in a fast-paced, large-scale environment
- Expertise with full software development life cycle
- Expertise in one or more object oriented languages (i.e. Python, Go, Java, C++)
- Strong experience working with containers and orchestration engines such as Kubernetes or Mesos
- Experience with large-scale Cloud development
- Understand core infrastructure services, distributed systems, microservices, and software at a large scale
- Fluent in Mandarin
Desirable
- Experience in fast pasted and matrixed organizations
- Experience operating and supporting agile development, production services, and high availability
- Experience developing using cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, GCP) using containers and orchestration (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes), managed using infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform, Ansible)
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins)
- Understand networking - HTTP down to the network layer (TCP/IP, routing, etc.)
- Experience working with international team members and colleagues
What the job involves
- As a part of the Riot Infrastructure Team, you'll be part of the core group of engineers that build our infrastructure that enables our games to operate globally at scale
- You will work across all infrastructure and game teams to automate all aspects of our infrastructures to enable teams to be more efficient and productive by building software and tools
- If you are looking to have an impact across different aspects of Riot infrastructure, join us and pioneer solutions that will help us scale to the next level
- As a Staff Software Engineer on the Infrastructure Team, you’ll be part of a team that is focused on enabling Riot engineers to reduce toil and inefficiency via tooling and automation
- The tools that you could be building can range from a Slack bot to games deployment
- You will support the team as it collaborates with other teams across not just infrastructure but also across Riot to solve critical problem areas where tooling and automation are keys to the solution
- Design solutions and features based on requirements and agreements with our stakeholders using our standard frameworks and best practices
- Drive improvements to our standards and best practices where necessary
- Continually looking for efficiency and improvement opportunities within our infrastructure, propose solutions and rally support for your proposal
- Work with senior leadership across organizations to ensure successful implementation
- Lead by example on quality design and coding standards
- Help grow the team through mentoring and leveling up of less experienced teammates
- Build healthy relationships with other engineering teams at Riot to foster cross-team collaboration
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 just under seventy million 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 capitalising on the rising popularity of esports, with the League of Legends World Championships one of the most watched events in the space.
However, adding further titles to its resume will be key to building on its success, as League of Legends was its only offering for the best part of a decade. Since being acquired by Chinese tech giant Tencent in 2011, the company has grown significantly in Asian markets, opening its Shanghai Game Studio in 2021 and expanding its China Game Studio Group in 2022. These two hubs will help Riot Games make further inroads in a country where PC gaming is already huge and continues to grow.
Regardless of League of Legends' success both online and in live arenas, the company nevertheless experienced a round of layoffs internationally that amounted to 11% of its workforce. Pair that with legal troubles in 2024 concerning the company’s partnership with now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, and Riot Games appears to be in a period of transition. Thanks to the strength of its gaming products, however, Riot will no doubt maintain a comfortable position within the gaming world.
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
- We offer medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children
- Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage are also available
- Riot will support your retirement benefits with a company match, and double down on your donations of time and money to non-profit charitable organizations
- Balance between work and personal life is encouraged with open paid time off, and a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your personal relationship with games
Company HQ
Sawtelle, Los Angeles, CA
Leadership
Brandon Beck
(Co-Chairman)Having studied at the University of Southern California, they worked as a Management Consultant at Bain & Company. they left this role in September 2006 to co-found Riot Games, where they served initially as co-CEO.
Marc Merrill
(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.
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