Manager, Software Engineering - VALORANT, Esports Game Features

At Riot, engineering managers gain organizational alignment by building a strong engineering vision and offering creative solutions to organizational design. We also serve as mentors for engineers, guiding their performance and finding them growth opportunities by delivering compelling player experiences. As a Software Engineering Manager on VALORANT, you’ll dive into projects that focus on team cohesion and cross-team goals. You’ll collaborate with a multidisciplinary leadership team to lead a passionate team of engineers in the delivery of exciting new features for VALORANT and our players.

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

As a Software Engineering Manager of the VALORANT Esports Features Team, you will lead a team of engineers and work closely with world class designers and producers to build and deliver a first in class esports experience for players. You will maintain and build upon the in-game esports hub, maintain critical esports systems such as observer mode and the VALORANT esports platform, and enable Premier teams to progress into professional competition.

You will report to the Senior Engineering Manager of the Competitive area.

• Lead, grow, and coach team members to build talent over the long term
• Demonstrate a high bar of craft excellence for your team
• Take ownership of key components within VALORANT’s architecture, ensuring reliability, scalability, and long-term sustainability
• Build, operate, and support live game services, including participation in an on‑call rotation
• Provide technical expertise throughout the product life cycle including design, implementation, and delivery of features while continuously improving the software engineering quality and efficiency.
• Identify, recruit, interview, and hire software engineers to help teams scale effectively.
• Cultivate your team's culture of collaboration, creativity and passion for game making

• 4+ years of experience as a Software Engineer
• 2+ years experience directly leading an engineering team either as an Engineering Manager or Technical Lead & mentor.
• 2+ years professional experience building distributed systems at scale
• 2+ years expertise with C++, Golang, or similar language(s)
• Experience working in the games industry
• Familiarity working in an agile environment

• Professional experience working with cloud computing and cloud technologies
• Professional experience building large scale backend systems or game services
• Professional experience building player‑or‑user‑facing frontend experiences (e.g. web, mobile, game)
• Experience working on competitive multiplayer games
• Experience with Unreal Engine
• Engagement in the esports scene

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!

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.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player‑facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together.

Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

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…