Senior Manager, Audio Direction - Unpublished R&D Product

At Riot, our Audio Teams are dedicated to creating memorable and enduring sonic experiences for players. Sound is a vital element we use to imbue life into our games, cinematics, esports, albums, and various other projects. We are also continuously focused on elevating our team and techniques through experimentation and engaging with the games we are passionate about.

As the Senior Manager, Audio Direction on an Unpublished R&D Product, you will be responsible for building the game’s audio direction and driving the vision through all aspects of audio including Voice, SFX, and Music. You will lean on your years of experience to help build some of the most iconic audio in the world of gaming. Your skills, artistic ear and understanding of audio principles and process will lead the way in audio creation. You will partner with the Creative Director, other craft leads as well as Product Owners, Designers and Engineers to create globally-appealing content that inspires your team and delights players. You will report directly to the Art Director.

Responsibilities:

• Create audio assets for highly iterative gameplay features using industry-standard methods and tools.
• Develop audio vision and strategy, ensuring all audio content for the product is delivered.
• Collaborate with product leadership to align audio around product mission and goals.
• Clearly define and communicate audio goals including how they align with product goals to direct reports, product leadership and others.
• Ensure your team has the appropriate process and pipelines in place for effective audio content delivery.
• Create and execute on a hiring plan to ensure the audio team has the appropriate staff and resources to accomplish product goals.
• Run weekly reviews, audio playtests, feedback consolidation, to create high-quality audio experiences that players appreciate.
• Define/manage milestones, schedule, priorities, and work output against audio vision and product goals/direction for multiple teams from pre-production onward.
• Manage 2-5 audio developers, including other managers/leads for performance and growth, through the use of PDP’s, recurring 1:1’s, and performance reviews.
• Work with narrative/voice over team to develop consistent quality and output of all in-game and linear voice over content.
• Use in-house engine tools and Wwise to implement assets directly into the game for characters, features and other systems.
• Manage outsource partners for quality control and workload overflow.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of industry experience working in game audio (SFX, VO, Music), including designing, mixing, implementing, mastering, and shipping audio
• 6+ years of professional experience directly working with audio middleware e.g. Wwise, FMOD, Unreal Audio, etc.
• 5+ years of professional experience as a Lead Sound Designer
• 5+ years of proven experience managing and mentoring direct reports in the audio discipline
• Experience navigating products from prototype through late production and launch in sustainable approach

Desired Qualifications:

• Professional experience working with various game engines from licensed to proprietary (Unity, Unreal, etc.)
• Expertise working in the holistic game audio process (sound design, voice-over, music, implementation, pipelines, technology, player experience, etc.).
• Knowledge of programming or scripting languages (Unreal Blueprint, C++, etc.)
• Strong sense of game design and gameplay
• Excellent communication, time-management, and organizational skills
• Comfortable and experienced with JIRA, and Perforce
• Ability to navigate product stakeholder, studio leadership, discipline and team feedback

As a part of the application process, you may be expected to provide a portfolio or demo reel of your work and may be asked to complete an audio test.

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 r