Senior Manager, Machine Learning Engineering - League of Legends
Required skills
- ML systems
- player-facing ML experiences
- developer-facing ML tools
- recommendations
- player behavior modeling
- matchmaking
- experimentation-driven personalization
- technical vision
- business impact
- ML engineering strategy
Nice to have
- Master’s degree
- full-stack teams
- distributed teams
- remote teams
- craft expertise
- collaborative spirit
Role summary
Riot Games is seeking a Senior Manager, Machine Learning Engineering for their League of Legends team in Los Angeles. This role leads the ML Engineering team responsible for building and operating ML systems for player-facing experiences and developer tools, covering areas like recommendations, player behavior modeling, and personalization. The manager will define the technical vision, execution strategy, and business impact of ML applications, overseeing the entire ML lifecycle from data pipelines to production operations. Key responsibilities include managing a team of engineers, setting the engineering vision, contributing to budgeting and hiring, and driving MLOps best practices. The role requires 10+ years of experience in large-scale software systems, particularly production ML systems, strong CS fundamentals, and proficiency in languages like Java, C++, or Python. Experience with MLOps, system design, and cross-team collaboration is essential. Preferred qualifications include a Master's degree, familiarity with Responsible AI, and experience with experimentation platforms.
As a Senior Manager, ML Engineering, you will lead the Machine Learning Engineering team responsible for building and operating machine learning systems that power League of Legends. This team delivers both player-facing ML experiences and developer-facing ML tools, enabling in-game and around-game capabilities such as recommendations, player behavior modeling, matchmaking, and experimentation-driven personalization.
In this role, you will be accountable for the technical vision, execution, and business impact of ML applications in League of Legends. You will shape the end-to-end ML engineering strategy, from data and feature pipelines to model development, deployment, evaluation, and operations, ensuring systems are scalable, reliable, and measurable in production. You will partner with development themes’ product and production leaders to enable the development of League of Legends existing and future player experiences.
You will report to the Data Engineering Director of League Insights. This role is based out of our Los Angeles Headquarters.
Responsibilities:
Required Qualifications:
Desired Qualifications:
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!
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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