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Video Games, Entertainment, Esports

Director of Data Engineering

Los Angeles, California, United StatesOnsiteFull TimeDirector$251,700–$351,900 /yrPosted 2 months agoVisa sponsorship available

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Role summary

Riot Games is seeking a Director of Data Engineering to lead the data infrastructure organization for its League Studio, powering games like League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics. This role involves setting technical direction for data architecture and pipelines, partnering with central data functions, and ensuring the health of the data engineering organization. The Director will manage a team of engineering managers and engineers, focusing on performance, career growth, and consistent delivery. Key responsibilities include defining engineering vision, contributing to the employee lifecycle (budgeting, hiring, coaching), and providing architectural direction. Collaboration with cross-functional leaders in engineering, product, and data is crucial for enabling data-driven development and delivering high-quality, scalable data solutions.

### Who you are
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience
- 10+ years of experience in data engineering or closely related domains
- 4+ years leading data engineering teams, including at least 2+ years managing managers
- Strong expertise in Python, Java, or similar languages, and deep grounding in CS fundamentals
- Demonstrated strength in system design, data structures, and algorithms
- In-depth knowledge of data engineering best practices, techniques, and methodologies to drive quality and reliability at scale
- Proven experience collaborating across multiple teams, departments, and disciplines
- Experience with project management, prioritization frameworks, and guiding investment decisions across people and systems
- Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience
- Experience with large-scale data platforms in gaming or adjacent consumer products
- Familiarity with large-scale experimentation platforms and cross-surface measurement
- Experience with modern data platforms, including transformation frameworks and governance or metadata tooling (e.g., dbt, Atlan, or similar)
- Experience leading platform-focused engineering organizations
- Experience leading and scaling distributed or remote teams
- 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 players' experiences, this could be your role!

### What the job involves
- As a Director, Data Engineering - League Studios, Tech Foundations, you will lead the data infrastructure organization that powers League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and other games across League Studio
- The organization encompasses telemetry generation and collection, data pipelines, governed data models, and data SDLC tooling, forming the end-to-end data workflow that supports game teams, analytics, and data science across the studio
- In this role, you will set the technical direction for League Studio’s data architecture and pipelines, working in close partnership with Riot’s central data functions, with clear accountability for the outcomes and health of the data engineering organization
- You will partner closely with leaders across engineering, product, production, and data disciplines to enable data-driven development for the studio’s current and next generation of games and player experiences
- You will report to the Engineering Director of Tech Foundations
- Lead and manage a team of highly skilled engineering managers and engineers, driving strong performance management, career growth, and consistent delivery of results
- Define, communicate, and socialize a clear engineering vision, partnering with peer leaders to build long-term organizational and staffing plans aligned with technical and product goals
- Contribute across the full employee lifecycle, including budgeting, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, coaching, and mentoring engineers, as well as managing contingent staff where applicable
- Partner with technical leads to provide architectural and technical direction across the product lifecycle, while continuously improving engineering quality, reliability, and efficiency
- Collaborate closely with cross-functional partners, including product management and technical production and product insights to deliver high-quality, scalable, and resilient data solutions
- Foster effective communication and collaboration within the data engineering organization and across the broader studio
- Stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies, guiding thoughtful adoption of best practices to maintain technical excellence and long-term sustainability

### 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.

Sample Riot Games interview questions

  • 1

    Create a real-time data feed for stock prices.

    system designmedium
  • 2

    Buildings with an Ocean View Find all buildings that have an ocean view. Input: heights = [1,2,3,4] Output: [3] Explanation: Since the ocean is to the right, only the rightmost tallest building (index 3) is not blocked by any others.

    codingmedium
  • 3

    Valid Word Abbreviation Determine if a string matches a valid word abbreviation. Input: word = "apple", abbr = "a2e" Output: FALSE Explanation: The abbreviation claims exactly 2 characters are skipped between 'a' and 'e', but "ppl" is actually 3 characters long.

    codingmedium
  • 4

    Find the majority element in an array. Given an array of size n, find the majority element. The majority element is the element that appears more than ⌊n / 2⌋ times. You may assume that the majority element always exists in the array. Input: nums = [3, 2, 3] Output: 3 Explanation: The number 3 appears 2 times, which is strictly greater than n/2 (1.5).

    codingmedium
  • 5

    Dot Product of Two Sparse Vectors Calculate the dot product of two sparse vectors. Input: nums1 = [0,1,0,0,2], nums2 = [0,0,0,0,5] Output: 10 Explanation: Multiplies the aligned non-zero values (2 * 5) and ignores all the zeros, yielding a dot product of 10.

    codingmedium

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