Senior Principal Researcher - League of Legends

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 essential 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 Sr. Principal Researcher on the League of Legends team, you will leverage industry-leading expertise in game research to help League of Legends deeply understand our product and players and to level up this craft across this and partner organizations.  You’ll lead and conduct a wide range of complex research to help us understand the health of the game, players, and experiences.  You’ll help to define and elevate craft standards and guide investments to unlock the full capacity of researchers.  You will operate as part of the LoL Insights team, reporting to the Insights Lead, and frequently provide findings and push recommendations forward to designers and leadership across the product.

Responsibilities:

• Define and tackle the most complex research problems across League of Legends including audience definition and understanding, product health deep dives, and highly specialized design research questions
• Construct, organize, execute, and socialize studies and surveys from start to finish across a variety of methods designed to answer business and product strategy questions such as understanding player motivations, pain points, and opportunity spaces
• Partner with analysts, researchers, and designers to generate insights and frameworks that will inform the strategic direction of LoL, and socialize these across our portfolio
• Share your results and advocate for solutions with other Rioters in clear, illustrative presentations
• Contribute to and elevate product strategic thinking and frameworking across all of LoL
• Level up research craft across Riot through mentorship of other researchers, improving customership, and leading infrastructure improvements

Required Qualifications:

• At least 10 years of relevant experience (an advanced degree can account for up to 2 years of experience)
• 4+ years doing research specifically in the games industry
• Broad experience in quantitative and qualitative research methods including conducting interviews, focus groups, and online community studies, as well as performing survey research with deep expertise in at least one of these areas
• Experience identifying and conducting research to answer product or portfolio strategy questions
• Meaningful familiarity with game design/direction and product strategy
• Experience synthesizing & socializing research results and distilling results into impactful recommendations for product leadership
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills along with the strong ability to collaborate effectively at all levels and departments of the organization
• Able to work independently and lead complex projects that require coordinating multi-party worksteams

Desired Qualifications:

• 3+ years of experience working directly with senior executives (includes clients)
• Master’s degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline
• Experience with basic statistical methods for data analysis (regressions, correlations, factor analyses)
• Experience working with game teams through the entire lifecycle of the product (development, launch, and live operations)
• Vendor management experience
• Experience leading complex efforts with multiple collaborators

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise and a collaborative spirit that prioritizes the delight of players. We will look at your past studies and experience, but for this role, we also look for dedicated people with a personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this is the role for you!

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, 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.