Staff Software Engineer

About the role

You will own the design and delivery of core data infrastructure that powers player and analyst workflows at Riot Games. This role centers on the Data Experiences and Automation team within Riot Data Foundations, where you will architect and maintain systems that enable efficient data consumption and reporting. You will partner closely with product leaders and technical leads to translate evolving requirements into robust, scalable solutions. A core part of this position involves enabling faster iteration and reliability for Machine Learning and GenAI pipelines that impact the entire organization. You will leverage deep expertise in distributed systems to solve high-volume data challenges. Ultimately, your work will directly influence how insights are generated and acted upon across Riot Games.

Key facts

What you'll do

Design and build data platform products and user experiences that enhance how internal teams interact with critical data assets.

Implement automation to streamline data ingestion, transformation, and delivery processes for analysts and data engineers.

Collaborate with software engineers and product partners to define product requirements and prioritize technical work.

Develop and maintain scalable data pipelines that support real-time and batch processing requirements across the organization.

Optimize query performance and data accessibility to improve the speed and reliability of analytical workflows.

Lead technical design discussions and contribute to architectural decisions that affect data security, governance, and reliability.

Partner with non-technical stakeholders to gather requirements and ensure delivered solutions meet business objectives.

Participate in on-call rotations to ensure high availability and rapid response to production incidents.

Conduct detailed code reviews to uphold code quality, scalability, and long-term maintainability of data platforms.

Mentor engineers by sharing best practices in data engineering, testing, and deployment strategies.

Explore and prototype new technologies to evaluate their applicability to data operations and tooling improvements.

Support the adoption of open source tools to enhance the efficiency and flexibility of internal data workflows.

Champion testing and observability practices to improve reliability and reduce downtime in production systems.

Drive continuous improvement initiatives that enhance developer productivity and data platform usability.

Contribute to the broader engineering community through documentation, knowledge sharing, and cross-team collaboration.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or comparable field

7+ years of professional software engineering experience

5+ years of experience working with data warehousing solutions

7+ years of experience using Python for software development

5+ years of experience using SQL for complex querying and optimization

Understanding of core data engineering concepts including pipelines, storage, and processing frameworks

Experience building and maintaining systems in Agile and DevOps environments

Proven ability to work effectively in a globally distributed team structure

Strong ownership mindset with a history of delivering high-impact technical solutions

Ability to interpret business requirements and translate them into technical specifications

Experience with version control systems and modern software development workflows

Commitment to writing clean, testable, and maintainable code

Comfort working in fast-paced environments with evolving priorities and ambiguous problems

Willingness to participate in on-call responsibilities for critical production services

Nice to have

Experience with ML Operations and GenAI pipelines and infrastructure

Experience with open source ETL frameworks such as Airflow, Luigi, or similar

Practical notes

This is a full-time position located in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Employment is contingent upon successful completion of background checks and verification of credentials.

Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

The listed compensation ranges reflect minimum and maximum values set by Riot Games policy, adjusted for location.

Riot Games is an equal opportunity employer and complies with applicable fair chance and disability laws.