Manager, Software Engineering (Optimize) - Infrastructure

Location: Los Angeles, USA

Department: Riot Technology

Riot engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the chance to work in many broader domains. As an Engineering Manager, you’ll predominantly offer creative solutions to organizational design. You’ll also serve as a mentor for a team of engineers, overseeing performance management, growth opportunities, and accountability.

The Infrastructure group at Riot builds the foundation that enables our games to operate globally and securely at scale, ensuring the highest levels of infrastructure performance, availability, and quality for our players. As an Engineering Manager within the Optimize team, you will report to the Senior Engineering Manager for the group and lead a team responsible for making sure we are using the cloud well. You'll champion automation, incident response, and continuous improvement, ensuring our systems are not only robust but also evolve efficiently to meet player demands.You will support the team in their collaboration with other infrastructure and game teams, focusing on critical challenges within the domains of cloud optimization and performance tuning. If you are looking to have a direct, positive impact on the people who play and love our games, please join us to help make Riot the most player-focused game company in the world.

Responsibilities:

• Manage a team of 4-10 cloud and software engineers; coaching them, overseeing performance management, identifying growth opportunities, and ensuring high quality delivery and best in class operational results.
• Manage the health and performance of the engineering team with empathy and authenticity, building trust and inspiring them to overcome challenges.
• Contribute to all parts of the employee life-cycle, including recruiting, hiring, managing, and mentoring engineers.
• Stay hands-on with your team's tech, overseeing the technical design and deliverables of the team and working with your team's most senior engineers.
• Build healthy relationships with other engineering teams at Riot to foster cross-team collaboration.
• Be accountable for your team's deliverables.

Required Qualifications: 

• 5+ years experience as a software/systems/performance engineer or in a role directly supporting engineering teams
• 3+ years experience managing an engineering team
• Expertise cloud computing with a particular focus on AWS technologies
• Experience working with Python or Golang
• Good understanding of DevOps practices and automation
• Expertise in project management, prioritization frameworks, and guiding investment strategies in people and systems.
• Experience delivering both multi-month projects and short, targeted engagements,  establishing clear deliverables and reporting on progress
• Experience collaborating across multiple teams and prioritizing work efforts.
• Familiarity with infrastructure services, distributed systems, microservices, and software design at high scale.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience in performance engineering 
• Good understanding of low level systems and Linux internals
• Expertise in supporting agile development 
• Experience in product development and management
• Familiarity with networking
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes your fellow Rioters, who are the customers of your work. Being a dedicated fan of games is not necessary for this position!

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 pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

It’s our policy to provide equal employment opportunity for all applicants and members of Riot Games, Inc. Riot Games makes reasonable accommodations for handicapped and disabled Rioters and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, handicap, veteran status, marital status, criminal history, or any other category protected by applicable federal and state law. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.