Staff Software Engineer

Riot Engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the chance to work in many broader domains. As a Software Engineer, you’ll also dive into projects that focus on team cohesiveness and cross-team objectives. You’ll lead without authority and provide other engineers with a clear illustration of extraordinary engineering.

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Infrastructure Reliability team, you will be a critical part of our efforts to ensure the scalability, availability, and performance of our game infrastructure. This role demands strong coding skills, a passion for automation, and a focus on reliability engineering to deliver robust and maintainable systems. You will work on implementing infrastructure as code, developing self-healing systems, and creating tools to enhance observability and streamline troubleshooting for core infrastructure services. This role typically combines technical expertise with leadership responsibilities and requires a strong understanding of distributed systems, DevOps practices, and software development.

Responsibilities: 

• Automation & DevOps: Drive the automation of infrastructure management, deployment pipelines, and system monitoring. Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to ensure efficient delivery of code to production.
• Cloud & On-Premises Management: Architect, implement, and manage cloud-based (AWS, GCP) and hybrid infrastructure solutions. Oversee container orchestration using Kubernetes, Docker, or similar technologies
• Infrastructure Design & Development: Design and implement infrastructure systems to support large-scale, high-availability services. Develop and maintain tools for infrastructure provisioning, monitoring, and management.
• Technical Leadership: Mentor and guide junior engineers, fostering a culture of collaboration and technical excellence. Provide thought leadership on infrastructure trends and technologies to influence the organization’s roadmap.

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in software engineering supporting large-scale infrastructure
• Expertise in the public cloud:  AWS ecosystem, including serverless services (e.g., Lambda, API Gateway), container orchestration with Kubernetes (EKS), and foundational services (e.g., S3, VPC, EBS, Firewalls). Knowledge of GCP is plus
• Automation and Scripting: Proficiency in scripting and programming languages like Python and Golang to drive automation, manage deployments, and create tooling. Knowledge of Java is plus
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Extensive hands-on experience with Terraform, Cloudformation or similar infrastructure provisioning and configuration management. Knowledge of Pulumi for cloud infrastructure in code is a plus.
• CI/CD Expertise: Proven experience working with CI/CD pipelines including tools like Jenkins,Harness and GitHub actions, emphasizing deployment reliability and automation.
• Containerization: Expertise in container management and orchestration with Docker and Kubernetes, and experience designing robust microservices infrastructure. Strong understanding of configuration formats such as JSON and YAML and their application in IaC, Kubernetes manifests, and other deployment files.
• Tools and Systems : Familiarity with monitoring and logging tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack) and deep understanding of distributed systems, networking, and storage solutions
• Adaptability: Ability to quickly adopt and adapt to new technologies, frameworks, and cloud-native tools to solve complex problems.
• Team Leadership: Proven experience in guiding delivery goals across teams, advocating for best practices, and driving alignment on cross-initiative projects and initiatives.

Desired Qualifications: 

• Proven experience leading and mentoring a team of engineers, fostering collaboration and technical growth.
• Good understanding of CDN, WAF and AWS firewalls.
• Familiarity with databases (SQL and NoSQL) and networking foundations.

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.

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.