Riot Engineers bring deep expertise in specific technical domains while embracing cross-functional collaboration to deliver exceptional player experiences.

As a Software Engineer on an unpublished R&D project, you will focus on building and operating backend systems that power our social and store experiences. You will work closely with UI engineers, product, production, and central platform teams to deliver reliable, scalable services that directly impact players. This includes implementing high-load, highly available and secure client-server interactions that are fundamental to every player’s experience, as well as supporting the infrastructure, observability, and operational practices required to run a global live service. Additionally, you will help ensure our services are performant, resilient, and ready to operate at scale. You will report to a Senior Engineering Manager supporting the team within an R&D game project.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and maintain scalable backend services supporting social and store systems
Own features spanning from service implementation to in-game integration
Partner with product managers to identify and implement new backend services required to unlock novel features.
Contribute to API design and client-server communication patterns optimized for high availability and efficient throughput
Support live services, including operational readiness, monitoring, and incident response participation
Implement and maintain infrastructure in support of new social and store features and optimize the cost of operations
Design and implement internal web tooling and dashboards to support game operations, live service monitoring, or content management workflows (i.e., store catalog and offer management) for partner teams.
Act as a technical liaison to shared platform teams for core integrations, ensuring reliable and performant client-server data flow.
Participate in code reviews, design discussions, and continuous improvement of engineering practices
Collaborate cross-functionally with design, QA, and production

Required Qualifications

5+ years of experience building backend systems, distributed systems, or game services
Experience contributing to scalable, production-ready architectures
Strong understanding of client-service architecture and service-oriented design principles
Proficiency in Golang, C++, Java or another modern programming language
Experience working with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS)
Experience implementing observability practices including logging, monitoring, and diagnostics
Experience building and maintaining internal web applications or tooling (e.g., using frameworks like Next, React, Angular, or Vue.js, or similar server-side rendering experience).

Desired Qualifications

Experience working on or shipping an online multiplayer game
Experience supporting or operating live services post-launch
Experience working both in the game client and backend systems
Experience with Unreal Engine
Experience with AI assisted engineering workflows

For this role, success is grounded in technical craftsmanship, collaborative execution, and accountability in live service environments. We value engineers who understand how backend systems support social and store features, who can reason about operating distributed systems at scale, and who care deeply about delivering reliable experiences to players. We will consider your experience, technical depth, and connection to games when evaluating your application.

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: