Principal Data Engineer -Teamfight Tactics
Required skills
- Principal Data Engineer
- Teamfight Tactics
- CoreTech
- data ecosystem
- telemetry
- schemas
- data products
- metrics
- pipelines
- production operations
Nice to have
- live-service game
- high-scale consumer product
- game engineering
- instrumentation
- launch readiness
- gameplay
Role summary
Riot Games is seeking a Principal Data Engineer for their Teamfight Tactics CoreTech team in Los Angeles. This individual contributor role will own the technical strategy, architecture, and roadmap for TFT's data ecosystem, ensuring its scalability, reliability, and cost-efficiency. Responsibilities include designing and building data systems, establishing data contracts, owning operational health, leading data modeling, and setting data governance standards. The ideal candidate has 8+ years of experience in data engineering, expertise in big-data technologies (Python, Spark, SQL, Airflow, DBT), cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), and a strong understanding of data modeling, governance, and quality. Experience in live-service games and mentoring engineers is desired. This role emphasizes player empathy and collaborative decision-making.
At Riot, Data Engineers build the trusted data foundations that help teams make better decisions and create better experiences for players. As a Principal Data Engineer on Teamfight Tactics CoreTech, you will own the technical direction and long-term health of TFT’s data ecosystem, from telemetry and schemas to govern data products, metrics, pipelines, and production operations.
You will partner closely with Game Engineering, Design, Product, Insights, and Data Science from feature conception through launch and live operations. You will translate player and product needs into scalable, reliable, and cost-efficient data solutions, while establishing the standards and operating practices that allow TFT teams to move quickly without compromising data trust.
This is a Principal-level individual contributor role. You will lead ambiguous, multi-team initiatives; make architecture and prioritization tradeoffs; mentor engineers and data practitioners; and influence data-engineering standards across TFT and Riot. You will remain hands-on where it creates leverage, while raising the effectiveness of the broader team through technical direction, coaching, and durable systems.
Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Desired Qualifications:
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!
Our Perks:
Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and 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 and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re 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, we’re looking forward to your application.
It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and 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 and state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and 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, and 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:
These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.
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
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 - 4
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 - 5
Maximum Subarray Sum Find the maximum subarray sum in an integer array. Input: nums = [-3,-4,-1,-2] Output: -1 Explanation: Kadane's algorithm correctly identifies that the single isolated element -1 provides the highest possible sum.
codingmedium
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