Riot Engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the chance to work in many broader domains. As a Staff Software Engineer, youll also dive into projects that focus on team cohesiveness & cross-team goals. Youll lead without authority & provide other engineers with a clear illustration of extraordinary engineering.

As a Staff Software Engineer focused on backend services of an unpublished R&D product, you will be responsible for reliability of the entire back-end serving the core gameplay experience. This includes defining interactions between client & server that are fundamental to every players experience (think: high load, high availability) & varying infrastructure & compliance requirements. This also includes ensuring we have monitoring & diagnostic capabilities to help us when things go wrong. You will ensure we have a solid technical foundation so when we launch at scale, everything goes smoothly.

Responsibilities:

• Design & maintain tools necessary to solidify live operations for a new game
• Work with Riots central LiveOps teams to lead the charge & participate in processes for a healthy live service, such as on-call rotation, audits & incident reviews
• Help deliver internet scale backend services for a genre-defining game that will serve millions of people globally
• Collaborate with leadership on planning & long term vision for running a live service game
• Build features to improve server reliability & performance
• Implement server infrastructure in support of new gameplay features
• Work with cloud technologies & services such as AWS
• Mentor more junior engineers on the team
• Collaborate effectively with other disciplines within game development, & central infrastructure teams
• Review & identify risks & requirements for usage of shared technologies owned by other teams

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of experience building large scale backend systems or game services
• Experience developing large systems from scratch, including gathering requirements & designing scalable, production-ready architecture
• BS degree or equivalent experience
• Expertise with at least one modern language used for services (Java, Golang)
• Expertise with cloud computing & cloud technologies such as AWS
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines
• Experience with analytics & monitoring platforms such as DataDog & Databricks
• Experience with containerization technologies such as Docker
• Experience in Service Reliability Engineering (SRE) or roles in service engineering with live ops experience

Desired Qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience working in container-based ecosystems & with a container scheduler (e.g. Marathon, Mesos, Kubernetes, GKE, Amazon ECS)
• Experience with distributed systems, specifically microservices
• Experience with Unreal Engine
• Experience with C++
• Experience with Golang
• Experience with relational & non-relational databases
• Experience working on both sides of client/service architectures
• Understand software performance & influence latency in online games

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

Our Perks:

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

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games & experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether youre working directly on a new player-facing experience or youre supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, were better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, were looking forward to your application.

Its our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants & members of Riot Games Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped & disabled Rioters & 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 & state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state & local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, & the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential & sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters & third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, & networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players & other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, & compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs & additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency & security.