Senior Manager, Software Engineering, Platform Engineering

About the role

You will own the end-to-end engineering strategy and execution for VALORANT Foundations platforms that enable continuous global game delivery. You will architect and evolve the service ecosystem that powers Unreal Engine build pipelines, game microservices, release orchestration, and live operations. You will mentor a distributed team of engineers and managers while driving accountability, performance management, and growth opportunities. You will establish a scalable, reliable, and developer-friendly platform aligned with player delight. You will partner across Riot and the Tencent ecosystem to remove operational bottlenecks and elevate standards. You will define the technical vision that balances innovation with the stability required for a live service at global scale.

Key facts

What you'll do

Lead a distributed engineering organization spanning Los Angeles, Seattle, and Sydney to deliver cohesive platform and service strategies.

Define the technical roadmap for VALORANT's core services, build systems, release engineering, and developer infrastructure ecosystem.

Architect and improve the pipelines that build, validate, deploy, and operate Unreal game clients, dedicated servers, and backend services globally.

Partner with Riot and Tencent engineering teams to enhance release velocity, operational visibility, reliability, and developer workflows across regions.

Establish technical direction for build infrastructure, release engineering, service orchestration, observability, and operational excellence practices.

Influence cross-team architecture and engineering standards to support VALORANT's long-term scalability and live service reliability.

Mentor senior engineers and engineering leaders while cultivating a culture of ownership, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Drive the provisioning, configuration, and administration of core player-facing game services within live environments.

Champion the modernization of CI/CD, release management, and developer platform tooling to reduce friction and accelerate delivery.

Elevate service reliability and observability for service-oriented architectures that support a globally distributed live game.

Operationalize load testing and operational tooling across Riot and Tencent ecosystems to validate performance at scale.

Ensure platform decisions align with the needs of both internal developers and external players who depend on uninterrupted live service.

Requirements

8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including experience building or operating large-scale external customer-facing backend systems, game services, or cloud platforms.

4+ years of engineering management experience leading engineers and engineering managers in a matrixed environment.

Proven experience leading organizations responsible for live service infrastructure, release engineering, developer platforms, or operational systems at scale.

Strong understanding of distributed systems, service reliability, deployment workflows, and operational excellence practices in cloud-native contexts.

Demonstrated ability to drive technical strategy and influence architecture across multiple teams or organizations over time.

Professional experience with cloud infrastructure and modern backend technologies such as Go, Java, C#, or similar languages in production systems.

Experience delivering complex software under strict operational constraints typical in live game environments.

Track record of collaborating with cross-functional and cross-regional stakeholders to align on priorities and execution.

Nice to have

Experience supporting or shipping large-scale live games with millions of concurrent players.

Hands-on experience with Unreal Engine build, deployment, or development ecosystems and related toolchains.

Background leading or modernizing CI/CD, release engineering, or developer infrastructure platforms for high-availability services.

Proven work improving observability, reliability, and operational tooling for service-oriented architectures and microservices.

Experience guiding engineering practices within globally distributed engineering organizations across multiple time zones.

Practical notes

This role requires availability during standard business hours as defined by the relevant location, with flexibility to coordinate across Los Angeles, Mercer Island, Seattle, Sydney, and other Riot offices. Travel may be required within regions for team collaboration, business needs, or occasional company events as outlined in current policies. Employment eligibility requirements will be evaluated based on the legal frameworks applicable to the role location. Candidates must meet all criteria outlined in the Requirements section to be considered for this position.