Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played video game in the world, over 100 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience.
We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.
Riot Engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the chance to work in many broader domains. As a Software Engineer, you’ll work with our technologies, creating new solutions to overcome high-volume obstacles and to provide player value.
As a Senior Software Engineer on Tech Foundations Team, you'll be working from our Shanghai office, and you'll report to the team's Engineering Manager. You’ll help Riot understand and design software which satisfies China-specific requirements and implement solutions on Riot standard tech stack. You'll write core backend services and tools to ensure high quality of service for games. You'll use your experience with microservices to build reliable, scalable systems that are easy to understand and operate. You'll also draw on your experience with engineering best practices to ensure that our testing and deployment tech is top of the line. You need to work with multiple teams inside and outside Riot to drive and deliver high-quality results.
Responsibilities:- Write high-quality code that follows Riot and industry best practices
- Build and operate scalable microservices that require performance and reliability
- Contribute to the design and building of services
- Work in a variety of different technical capacities, contributing to code bases in multiple languages and tech stacks
- Develop and adopt tools
- Participate in the team's on-call rotation
- Collaborate with internal/external teams in the product life cycle, use your collaboration skills and tech expertise to ship the product
- Hands-on coding and code review, be accountable for the quality and maintainability of the team codebase
- BS in Computer Science (or equivalent experience)
- 4+ years of deep hands-on programming experience in at least one of the following languages: C/C++, Java, Go, C#
- Experience operating and maintaining live web services and troubleshooting live issues
- Experience developing fault-tolerant distributed systems from the ground up, including requirements-gathering, architecture design, project breakdown, and execution
- Experience with cloud services (e.g. AWS, Azure, Tencent Cloud)
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a team environment
- Bilingual proficiency in Chinese (Mandarin) and English, with strong written and verbal communication skills in both languages
- Experienced in client game development
- Familiarity with building game content tools and pipelines
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!
Skills Required
- BS in Computer Science or equivalent experience
- 4+ years of hands-on programming experience in C/C++, Java, Go, or C#
- Experience operating and maintaining live web services
- Experience developing fault-tolerant distributed systems
- Experience with cloud services like AWS or Azure
- Bilingual proficiency in Chinese and English
Riot Games Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Riot Games and has not been reviewed or approved by Riot Games.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, and vision plans extend to employees, spouses/domestic partners, and children, with mental health and LGBTQIA+ support. Coverage breadth is reinforced by disability insurance and access to wellness and therapy programs.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Open Paid Time Off, company-wide end-of-year and mid-year breaks, and paid sabbaticals provide significant time to disconnect and recharge. These are complemented by holidays, sick time, and paid volunteer time.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — A Wellness Fund, Play Fund, free meals and office snacks/drinks, fitness stipends/classes, and commuter benefits add meaningful day-to-day value. Donation matching and relocation support further enhance the lifestyle component of total rewards.
Riot Games Insights
What We Do
Since 2006, Riot Games has stayed committed to changing the way video games are developed, published, and supported for players. From our first title, League of Legends, to 2020’s VALORANT; we have strived to evolve the community with growth in Esports, and expansion from games into entertainment. Players are the foundation of Riot's community and because of them, we’re able to reach new heights.
