As an Operations Manager you will direct a functional team at Riot, setting the strategy and leading the team. You're passionate about understanding the needs of the business partners, setting strategy for the function, and improving the efficiency of the team and associated processes. You ensure the approach to work on the business is well-defined, that our systems are followed, and that we are happy and effective.

As a Senior Operations Manager on the Central Playtesting Infrastructure team (CPI) reporting to the Insights Manager, you will oversee operational support, staff, facilities, and technology solutions for global games user research at Riot Games. You will understand both the near and long-term playtesting and user research road maps, and consequent infrastructure needs of user research, product management, and executive partners across the organization while combining those needs into a strategy and priorities for the CPI organization. You’ll determine what organizational, operational, business process, management, technological, facilities, etc. solutions are needed and promote solutions against those opportunities. You’ll navigate challenging strategic and management questions like “should we scale our hiring or automate our processes?”, “which user research technologies should we support in-house vs. outsource?”, and “how do we balance meeting our partners’ needs today with investing in our ability to meet their needs tomorrow?”. 

You’ll manage a passionate team with a diversity of skills, overseeing their near-term and long-term priorities and ensuring efficient delivery on those priorities and managing their individual careers. Your team will help all products get access to the lab facilities, research technologies, operations support, and, most importantly, the players they need to conduct the audience research that helps them meet their major goals and milestones. In collaboration with user researchers across the company, you and your team will be essential to our ability to conduct the research that helps us put player experience at the heart of everything we do.

Responsibilities:

• Establish and direct the evolution of the Central Playtesting Infrastructure function; lead the team that executes and supports game user research playtesting functions
• Mentor individuals on the Central Playtesting Infrastructure team in a way that supports both their careers and the team’s performance
• Collaborate with customers, partners, and stakeholders, capturing requirements and opportunities while developing an understanding of needs and motivations
• Identify opportunities to optimize user research operations by improving communication, workflow, facilities, process, tools, documentation, etc. and guide the required changes
• Inform and build the team’s delivery road map, identifying important path issues, removing roadblocks, and driving efficiency of execution
• Create plans, reports, updates, etc. that keep partners and customers informed about status, progress, risks, and considerations
• Oversee the multiple facilities, resources (e.g. playtester database), operational staff, infrastructure budget, and business processes serving user researchers across Riot
• Anticipate and meet the operational needs of a developing user research team being at the forefront of games user research
• Evaluate and select platforms, tools, partnerships, vendors, and solutions to meet our company and product needs

Required Qualifications:

• 6+ years experience managing and directing teams of growing scope as a general, operations, project, or product manager
• 2+ years people management experience; hiring, training, and evaluating employees
• Experience directing and guiding a team through a complete life-cycle of several launched organizational projects
• Experience improving team productivity and creating efficiencies through automation, tools development, and business process optimization
• Experience creating processes with other departments - i.e. finance, legal, procurement, security
• Familiarity with the process of a user research study: problem identification, scoping, protocol design, recruiting, proctoring, data capture, analysis, etc.
• Experience managing a budget
• Experience navigating complex and ambiguous problem spaces with competing sets of expectations and priorities; the ability to make strategic decisions and align partners across those priorities including senior leaders and executives

Desired Qualifications:

• 2+ years of experience leading UX research operations, user researcher operations, or games user research operations teams preferred

Our Perks:

We offer medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children. Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage are also available. Riot will support your retirement benefits with a company match, and double down on your donations of time and money to non-profit charitable organizations. Balance between work and personal life is encouraged with open paid time off, and a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your personal relationship with games.

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, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history (LAMC 189.00).

Don’t forget to include a resume and cover letter. We receive many applications, but we’ll notice a fun, well-written intro that shows us you Dare to Dream and Execute with Excellence.