Principal Researcher; League of Legends PubSports – Product Insights

Overview

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. Pubsports Insights is forming a team to embed into League of Legends to enhance our understanding of players out-of-game.

We’re seeking a Principal Researcher to help build a deep understanding of how players connect to our Publishing and Esports content. We also want to understand how ecosystem elements keep players attached to the League brand even when they aren’t actively playing and what it would take to bring new players into the ecosystem. This role will conduct research using custom and survey methods to help inform data-driven strategies for improving player experiences.

You’ll collaborate with researchers on League game insights as well as within pubsports and central teams, reporting to a League Pubsports Insights lead. This hybrid position blends onsite work in Santa Monica, CA with remote flexibility.

• Design and execute end-to-end studies using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods to uncover player motivations, pain points, and emerging opportunity areas.
• Generate strategic insights that inform high impact publishing, esports, and additional out-of-game decisions for League ranging from positioning, to regional investment strategies and GTM planning.
• Work closely with League product teams to build cohesive insights about how out of game experiences impact players and what can be improved to enhance them.
• Communicate research findings through compelling narratives that align stakeholders and drive executive decision-making.
• Champion the player perspective by delivering evidence-based guidance on player needs, motivations, and behaviors, both current players and prospective League players.
• Collaborate closely with game teams, additional researchers, and Insights partners to develop and socialize research-driven frameworks that shape League’s product strategy and help to level up research capabilities at Riot.
• Advance strategic thinking and research framework development to support long-term innovation and player-focused development.

• 9+ years of relevant research experience (advanced degrees may substitute for up to 2 years).
• Demonstrated ability to conduct research that informs game product and portfolio strategy.
• Experienced in both qualitative and quantitative research methods – including in-depth-interviews, focus groups, playtests, diary studies, and surveys – with deep specialization in at least one.
• Skilled at synthesizing research findings into clear, actionable insights for product leadership.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; able to influence across all levels of an organization.
• Experience joining research findings with analytics approaches to join out-of-game player understanding with behavioral patterns.
• Proven ability to independently lead complex, multi-stakeholder projects and cross-functional work streams in collaboration with diverse partners.
• Experience managing external vendors in driving research/insights projects.

• Experience working in gaming, entertainment, or live-service product marketing.
• Familiarity with League of Legends and in the PC PvP gaming space.
• Familiarity with distributed data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark).
• Exposure to global and regional marketing campaign planning and execution.

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 focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other…