Senior Software Engineer, Engine & Tools, Unpublished R&D Product

As a Senior Software Engineer, Engine & Tools on an unpublished R&D product, you will be responsible for designing and implementing AI/ML driven tools and features for one of Riot’s most exciting new games. You will work closely with designers, producers, and other engineers to understand their needs, and will be hands-on in conceptualizing, planning, implementing, and maintaining AI-powered solutions to increase developer efficiency. We’re looking for someone who is passionate about empowering their team to deliver great player experiences, works well in cross-disciplinary teams, is aware of the latest trends, and finds practical applications of AI/ML technologies to current and future game development challenges.

Riot engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the opportunity to work in a variety of broader domains. We work with both new and current technology, creating innovative solutions to solve complex, large-scale challenges and deliver player value. As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll own and deliver important features and model best practices within the team. You will report to the Senior Engineering Manager of the Tech Foundations team within an Unpublished R&D Product. Internal Job Title: Software Engineer II

Responsibilities:

• Work closely with designers, artists, and other engineers to discover and conceptualize opportunities for AI-powered workflow enhancements
• Engage with engineering leaders to help define the team’s future vision for AI-based developer tooling and workflows
• Collaborate with artists, designers, QA, and fellow engineers to scope, design, implement, and test AI/ML-based solutions
• Keep up with technical developments in the industry relating to AI/ML and find practical applications that help address developer and player facing problems
• Model the team’s best practices for tools architecture and implementation
• Support and advance the team’s adoption of AI/ML tools for game development through mentorship, documentation, and advocacy
• Provide documentation and trainings on new tools and workflows to internal customers
• Mentor more junior engineers as the team scales

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years (or equivalent depth) of professional experience in software engineering, including experience delivering live or shipped products at scale
• 2+ years (or equivalent depth) working on game development tools
• Experience in Unreal Engine
• Experience working with AI/ML systems in a production-ready environment
• B.S. in computer science or equivalent experience
• Proven ability to navigate moderately ambiguous problems with cross-disciplinary stakeholders
• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences
• Proficiency in C++

Desired Qualifications:

• Applied knowledge in one or more of the following: reinforcement learning, imitation learning, decision-making under uncertainty, LLM, AI planning, or multi-agent systems
• Experience working with modern ML/data science libraries and frameworks such as PyTorch/TensorFlow, pandas, etc.
• Working knowledge of tooling solutions utilized in AAA games around the industry
• Experience developing AI- or ML-driven content tools
• Experience developing tools that integrate with both client and backend systems
• Experience developing tools that integrate with art pipelines (e.g. Maya, Blender, etc.)
• History of contributing to engineering culture and best practices
• Experience working on distributed 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!

Our Perks

At Riot we strongly believe in work/life balance, and we encourage that with our open paid time off policy, paid parental leave (for both primary and secondary carers) and flexible work schedules to fit your lifestyle.

We also believe that work should be fun, we have a LAN gaming room, the latest consoles, a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of our players and community, and all the snacks you would ever need to power through your day (even healthy snacks!).

And that’s not all we offer, there’s also

• Medical, Dental and Vision Stipend
• Wellbeing Reimbursement
• We will double down on your donations of time and money to non-profits
• Employee Assistance Program
• Learning and Development opportunities

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in Gaming.