Staff Data Engineer - League of Legends

Riot’s Data Engineers harness petabytes of data and state-of-the-art processing technologies to build products that elevate the player experience at massive scale.

As a Staff Data Engineer on the League of Legends Data Engineering team, you will collaborate with product managers, analysts, and engineers to ensure our data is reliable, performant, and scalable. You will design and champion data standards to ensure our systems grow with our player base. This role will be based out of our Los Angeles headquarters. 

Responsibilities:

• Design and lead the implementation of architectures that support advanced analytics and machine learning models
• Develop scalable, medallion-oriented data models that cater to both current and future needs where data volume grows significantly.
• Design and implement ETL processes and data integration strategies to handle diverse data sources and formats
• Liaison between our team, the League of Legends team, and service teams as well as central platform teams to understand their needs and provide solutions
• Analyze existing systems for bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and implement solutions to optimize data flow and processing for high-volume, complex datasets
• Lead initiatives in data governance, data quality, and metadata management that ensure data accuracy, consistency, and security
• Explore and evaluate new technologies, tools, and data management practices to enhance the capabilities of the data platform
• Collaborate closely with machine learning engineers and analysts, providing them with the data required for complex analytics, machine learning models, and data exploration
• Communicate complex data concepts and the value of data projects to stakeholders at all levels of the organization, influencing data-driven decision-making and strategy
• On-call responsibility for production systems powering critical product observability and machine learning models

• 6+ years of relevant experience developing scalable data systems
• Experience mentoring in Data Engineering best practices
• Experience setting the technical direction of projects
• Extensive experience designing standard data models & event-driven architecture
• Extensive experience modeling data to deliver business insights
• Experience developing solutions in DBT, Spark, SQL, and Airflow or equivalent data technologies
• Experience working with Python
• Experience with cloud computing technologies (AWS or equivalent)

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!

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:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

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.