Manager, Software Engineering, Services - VALORANT

Riot engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the opportunity to work in many broader domains. As an Engineering Manager, you will gain organizational alignment by building a strong engineering vision and offering creative solutions to organizational design. You’ll also serve as a mentor for a team of engineers, overseeing performance management, growth opportunities, and accountability.

VALORANT is Riot's take on a character-based tactical shooter (for more info on VALORANT click here!). As a Manager, Software Engineering (Services) in VALORANT’s Core Services team, you will lead a team of engineers responsible for improving how VALORANT builds, delivers, and operates its global services footprint. You will lead development of new services, drive evergreen improvements to existing services, improve standards and frameworks to improve services development across VALORANT, and improve the tools and pipelines used to ship and operate those services. You will work closely with technical teams in Tencent to improve services delivery and operations in China, closing divergences in developer experience and platform behavior between Tencent and Riot regions. You will report to the Senior Manager, Software Engineering (Services) for the VALORANT Foundations area.

Responsibilities:

• Manage a team of 5-10 Software Engineers across experience levels.
• Ensure VALORANT Players receive a consistently great services experience in Riot and Tencent regions.
• Serve as a hands-on engineering leader, actively contributing across all phases of the product lifecycle, including implementation.
• Develop a technical vision for your team, working with production and product partners to ensure consistency with overall product goals. Communicate this vision to your team clearly.
• Advocate for Players, your team, and internal development customers when deciding what to build and why. Coordinate with other teams across Riot and Tencent working on Services technology.
• Ensure high technical quality of what your team produces. Establish mechanisms to ensure your engineers have room to invent while maintaining a technical backstop for them.
• Foster a collaborative, challenging, and satisfying environment for your development team. Find and surface issues, opportunities, and address them head-on. Celebrate wins.
• Coach and develop your engineering team to grow in their roles, develop technical skills, and improve their effectiveness.
• Champion and model Riot’s values, setting the tone for your team and peers.
• Participate in your team’s on-call rotation.

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years professional experience as a software engineer working in services development roles.
• 2+ years experience directly leading an engineering team either as an Engineering Manager or Technical Lead & mentor.
• Professional experience driving technical direction and influencing architecture within a team.
• Expertise with C#, Java, Golang, or similar language(s).
• Professional experience with Lean or Agile development processes (Scrum, Kanban, etc).
• Professional experience working with cloud computing and cloud technologies.
• Professional experience building large-scale backend systems or game services.

Desired Qualifications:

• Professional or academic experience working with C++.
• Professional or hobby experience working with Unreal Engine

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 the experiences of players, this could be the role for you!

Our Perks:

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 pa