Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Riot Games
Platform & Integrations - League of Legends
$292.3-437.9k
+ Incentive compensation + equity
Player-focused game development platform
Be an early applicant
Player-focused game development platform
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$292.3-437.9k
+ Incentive compensation + equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To be the most player-focused game company in the world.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
- 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 5+ years building production ML platforms, systems, or MLOps capabilities
- Evidence that platforms or systems you’ve led have become load-bearing for multiple teams or products — adopted, depended on, and evolved beyond the original scope
- Deep operational intuition for ML systems at scale: you’ve lived through the failure modes (training-serving skew, silent degradation, cost spirals) and built the systems to prevent them
- Background in cloud-native orchestration and large-scale system design (Kubernetes, GPU scheduling, container orchestration) applied at global scale
- History of improving developer experience for ML practitioners in ways that measurably changed how fast or reliably they shipped
- Track record mentoring senior and staff-level engineers; evidence of elevating platform engineering judgment across an organization
- Experience building ML platforms that serve multiple products or game titles simultaneously is a plus
- Track record solving novel scale, latency, or reliability constraints in ML data pipelines is a plus
- Background in ML governance, security, privacy-preserving techniques, or compliance at organizational scale is a plus
- Passion for player experience, games, or creative technology
- For this role, you will 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 players' experiences, this could be your role!
What the job involves
- ML engineers at Riot own the full lifecycle of machine learning in production — from problem framing through model design, deployment, and operation — building systems that serve players at global scale. They work across disciplines with engineers, data scientists, designers, and product teams to turn ML capabilities into player-facing experiences and tools for making great games
- As a Principal AI/ML Platform Engineer for League of Legends, you will set ML platform and integration strategy that enables League teams to build, launch, and operate player and developer facing ML experiences
- You will drive the systems, tooling, and operational standards that enable teams to deploy and operate ML at global scale. Your technical direction will influence product strategy and your work will directly shape how League of Legends builds and evolves player-facing experiences
- Your work will span year-plus efforts across multiple products, mentoring senior engineers and coaching across disciplines
- You will report to the Senior ML Engineering Manager within the League of Legends game team
- Lead AI/ML workflow and MLOps for League of Legends; set automation standards including auto-remediation and self-healing pipelines; drive implementation
- Lead AI/ML serving architecture that scales to production load for Riot’s player base; design systems requiring minimal operational intervention; drive implementation of proven serving architectures
- Lead ML feature platform in partnership with data engineering to scale feature development and processing; solve scale, latency, or reliability constraints in ML data pipelines
- Lead AI/ML developer experience that accelerates development; remove workflow bottlenecks and enable new capabilities
- Lead AI/ML governance in partnership with compliance experts to ensure regulatory adherence; drive implementation of proven frameworks
- Lead AI/ML platform security in partnership with security teams; drive implementation of proven privacy, security, and cryptography techniques for AI/ML
- Drive AI/ML pipeline development and deployment standards, coordinating with data engineering on shared MLOps capabilities
- Drive AI/ML service development and API standards across product integrations
- Drive operational excellence and cost optimization for AI/ML systems across the organization
- Drive incident management and response standards for AI/ML systems across production services
- Drive observability and monitoring standards for AI/ML systems across services
- Drive tooling strategy and evaluation for AI/ML platforms across the organization
- Drive mentorship of senior engineers across multiple products or problem areas; coach developers across disciplines
- Drive recruiting standards across multiple products or problem areas; contribute to interview kits and TA efforts
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 120 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 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 and regional leagues to its numerous brand partnerships and sponsorships.
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-Chair & Co-Founder)Prior to co-founding Riot Games in 2006, Brandon was a Management Consultant at Bain & Company.
Marc Merrill
(CPO, Co-Chair & Co-Founder)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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