Technical Game Designer

As one of the most popular PC games today, League of Legends is reshaping PC gaming and core gamers perception of virtual goods.  Riot Games (named a Top 30 developer by Game Developer Magazine), the publisher and developer of League of Legends, is experiencing a period of rapid growth, doubling the size of the company in the past year.  With several million players in their first game across the US and Europe, and numerous awards (including IGN.com’s Readers' Choice for Best Multiplayer Game for League of Legends), Riot Games has pioneered new ground with their debut title and is continuing to aggressively expand.

We have a great opportunity for a junior to mid-level Technical Game Designer in our Los Angeles, CA office. This opportunity is best suited for trained software engineers who want to switch to start a career in game design, or designers who have recently stopped being programmers.  Compensation is competitive with similar engineering roles.  The ideal candidate will be a gamer with a passion for team-based online multiplayer gaming.  Applicants must also be able to remain positive and work effectively and efficiently in a team-oriented environment.  

Responsibilities:

  • Work closely with designers, engineers, artists and producers to design, lead, tune and implement various aspects of League of Legends and/or unannounced projects
  • Perform typical design responsibilities of both designing systems and pieces of content, and then implementing them
  • Be the "go to" person for complex implementations of design content, and for shepherding projects that require heavy programmer/designer interaction
  • As needed, act as a C++ gameplay software engineer no more than 50% of the time. We are willing to consider candidates with elite flex, flash and Java experience, but it is a less ideal fit
  • Be an example to other designers in writing clever, elegant, maintainable implementations within designer tools
  • This is primarily a game design role - but the requirements skew towards engineering

Requirements:

  • Passionate gamer; widely played across the games of the past and the games of today. Must be a serious online gamer (not necessarily masterful, but certainly committed!)
  • League of Legends experience very helpful
  • Fantastic critical thinking skills
  • At least 1000 hours of experience developing games as a mod author, game designer or engineer
  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field
  • Graduate degree in relevant field is valued and a plus
  • Candidate MUST be an excellent software engineer, who could easily be an entry-level game engineer at Riot.  Deep understanding of software engineering fundamentals are required, and strong knowledge of and experience with C++ strongly preferred.  Programming dabblers will not be qualified
  • Must have excellent organizational and communication (verbal & written) skills
  • Positive team-oriented attitude. Great at both leading AND taking direction

To apply, please send an email with Technical Game Designer | Name in the subject line to: design_recruiting@riotgames.com. Please include the following:

  • Resume
  • Cover Letter
  • List of games you’ve played over the past 6 months
  • Your top 10 games of all time