Manager, Software Engineering - VALORANT, Foundations

Riot Sydney is looking for an experienced Software Engineering Manager to join the Sydney-based VALORANT team.

Working closely with the LA Headquarters, Riot Sydney is a powerhouse of talent, and experts in global development. Our team works on VALORANT, League of Legends and Teamfight Tactics, alongside exciting R&D and Tech projects. If you believe that the Player Experience comes first, we want to hear from you. Our players are a diverse group from different backgrounds, and we want to see that reflected in the people who make our games, all qualified applicants will be considered for employment.

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

VALORANT is Riot’s take on a character-based tactical shooter (for more info on VALORANT click here!).

As an Engineering Manager on the VALORANT team, in addition to working in the code, you’ll also guide engineers on the team to grow in their careers and help the overall team meet its product and technical goals. As a leader in VALORANT Foundations, you will lead the development of tools and systems to smoothly and frequently ship new features and content to a live, tactical shooter on multiple platforms. You will collaborate strongly with other teams throughout VALORANT. You will report to the Senior Manager of Engineering.

Responsibilities:

• Technology Leader and People Manager for a group of 4-8 engineers
• Participate in discussions about our product vision and ensure that vision is clear to your team
• Know what’s being built and why. We are concerned with velocity, execution, quality, and technical debt
• Demonstrate a high bar of craft excellence for your team
• Have a positive and productive tone. Surface issues, opportunities, wins, and address them head-on
• Establish teams that are balanced, functional and strongly aligned with Riot values
• Help ensure our teams are healthy. We want team members to be motivated, encouraged, and perform well
• Where do people want to grow? What role is next for them? How can we help them to get there? We will hold them accountable for getting there while providing mentorship, coaching, and support
• Handle tension within and around the team. This could mean keeping a calm head, helping resolve conflicts or responding to emergent issues

Required Qualifications: 

• 2+ years of experience directly leading a software delivery team either as Engineering Manager or Technical Lead & mentor
• 5+ years of experience as a hands-on software engineer
• Experience across multiple systems and languages
• Experience working in an agile environment
• Experience collaborating across departments and disciplines to create solutions

Desired Qualifications:

The Manager in this role will lead a team working on a range of systems that interact with Unreal Engine, as well as back-end services. Ideal candidates will have broad experience which cover 1 or more of the following:

• Professional experience building games, preferably with Unreal
• Professional experience releasing software, preferably on multiple platforms
• Experience working with C++, Golang or C#
• Experience developing CI/CD systems

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:

At Riot we strongly believe in work / life balance, and we encourage that with our open paid time off policy, paid parental leave (for both primary and secondary carers) and flexible work schedules to fit your lifestyle.

We also believe that work should be fun, we have a LAN gaming room, the latest consoles, a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of our players and community, and all the snacks you would ever need to power through your day (even healthy snacks!).

• And that’s not all we offer, there’s also:
• Medical, Dental and Vision Stipend
• Wellbeing Reimbursement
• We will double down on your donations of time and money to non-profits
• Employee Assistance Program
• Learning and Development opportunities

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.