Senior Manager, Insights - Central User Research

The Insights discipline helps empower Rioters' decision-making to be more data-informed. We're an interdisciplinary group of scientists, consultants, and strategists from all sorts of backgrounds who join together to represent and advocate for gamers around the world. We believe that illuminating the globally diverse experiences, behaviors, and needs of gamers is critical to Riot living up to our player-focused mission. We're a group united by our love of games, science, and helping others succeed.

As a Senior Manager, Insights in Riot Discovery Studio (on the Central User Research team), you’ll oversee the efforts of a team delivering critical insights and validation to our games in R&D at Riot. Your team will conduct studies and analyses to inform the direction, experience, and systems of Riot’s games. You’ll form strong relationships with the leads of the games we support and ensure the central user research team is serving their needs. You will also support these teams in strategic decision making as they look to translate the Insights your team produces into positive decision making for the game and our players. You are a master at both building research activities, and organizing a team to deliver that work in a high quality and efficient manner. You will report to the Director of Insights.

Responsibilities:

• Be accountable for user research efforts across the games in development that your team supports 
• Ensure the quality of research delivered by your team and drive for continual improvement in the way it is conducted
• Derive and drive central insights efforts that improve our broad capabilities in providing Insights to game teams
• Oversee prioritization of research efforts, balancing the research needs of game teams and the central research team
• Advise game teams in a strategic capacity, helping to inform their game thesis and roadmap for Insights and validation
• Manage and grow researchers at a range of seniority, including other research managers
• Contribute at the R&D Office level on strategy and operations as part of the R&D Central Insights group
• Inform operational best practices and craft standards for user research in R&D office
• Share your results with game and R&D Office leadership in clear, illustrative presentations that drive meaningful change

Required Qualifications:

• Education background in ONE of the following categories:
• Advanced degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Human Factors or a related discipline plus 4 years of relevant research experience in game development
• Bachelor's degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline plus 6 years of relevant research experience in game development
• Experience running playtests and usability tests in a variety of paradigms, potentially including moderated testing, unmoderated testing, focused feature-specific testing, holistic and longitudinal testing, and more complex or constrained testing paradigms
• Experience conducting multi-modal audience and/or market research potentially including large scale surveys, moderated research communities, focus groups, and persona/profile generation
• Experience doing qualitative and quantitative data analysis
• Experience leading a team of game researchers 
• Experience managing other researchers
• Experience leading complex projects with multiple collaborators and work streams
• Trusted to operate independently regardless of structure, owns larger problems/projects/workstreams
• Ability to work collaboratively with others
• Experience synthesizing and presenting data for maximum impact and understanding

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience conducting games user research during the early stages of the development life cycle particularly incubation, prototype, and pre-production
• Familiarity with basic statistical methods for data analysis (regressions, correlations, factor analyses)
• Experience leading a centralized team of researchers, preferably working on multiple different products and/or game genres
• Experience managing vendors
• Experience working with leadership at the “team of teams” level on strategic and operational problems

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 role!

Our Perks:

Riot has a focus on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy, in addition to 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.

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in Gaming.

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.