Director of Operations

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played PC game in the world, over 32 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience. 

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints. 

That’s where you come in. 

The Director of Operations provides vision, strategic and tactical management of the Online Operations and IT departments,  maintaining and operating a 24x7 high-performance, highly-available online games infrastructure, as well as services and facilities to meet the information technology needs of the Riot Games development studio. 

As the leader of the IT and Online Operations team, the director of operations is responsible for all aspects of information technology planning and administration, including staff supervision, budget management, technical infrastructure procurement and logistics, establishment and enforcement of information technology policies, procedures, standards and best practices.  

Responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership, both technical and managerial to the IT and Online Operations departments
• Prepare and implement the operations strategy plan, as part of the overall company strategy plan
• Work with all departments to assess, plan, and fulfill IT needs
• Establish practices that lead to excellent technical talent acquisition and retention,
• Create an atmosphere of collaboration within the organization that emphasizes teamwork and professional development
• Establish clear goals, and performance targets for the team while rewarding initiative, discipline, dedication and technical excellence
• Manage the department budget, establishing financial and procurement controls, as well as regularly reporting budget execution status versus plan
• In collaboration with the company management and other departments, define clear service level objectives, as well as metrics, and remediation processes to guarantee meeting them, including but not limited to performance and availability targets for online services, internal systems, and technical support
• Plan, and implement processes that lead to excellence in services delivery, including but not limited to incident tracking and remediation, change management, service monitoring, alerting and escalation

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in technical operations/information technology roles
• At least 2 years of  experience in technical staff and operations management
• Enthusiasm, and ability to lead, motivate, and manage a team
• Outstanding analytical skills, as well as budget planning and management,
• In-depth understanding of  the current technology landscape (hosting, network, systems, storage, others), as well as industry trends and emerging technology
• Bachelors Degree, or equivalent working experience in the field
• Passion for building cohesive teams, taking pride in helping individuals achieve their best,  and the business achieve outstanding results
• Previous experience as a hands-on engineer, either in 24x7 high-scale online operations or IT services

Preferred:

• Familiarity with Agile software development methodologies (Scrum, others)
• Strong passion for computer games
• Previous experience in a game development studio