Senior Researcher

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played PC game in the world, over 100 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience. 

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.

That's where you come in.

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 players around the world. We believe that illuminating the globally diverse experiences, behaviors, and needs of players is critical 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 Senior Researcher, you’ll join the Insights discipline – the group of researchers, analysts, data scientists, and strategists responsible for solving problems and executing analyses that enable Rioters to make difficult decisions with confidence. You’ll be part of an interdisciplinary team and work closely with Rioters from other disciplines (designers, artists, producers, etc.) to conduct studies and analyses that will inform the features, systems, and experiences of our products. Your applied or experimental research background coupled with your deep understanding of data will ensure that you’re an effective advocate for players and can provide strategic guidance about their wants, needs, and behaviors.

As a Senior Researcher reporting to the Insights Lead on Wild Rift, you will be working across the Dev team, supporting the development of Live Features as well as incubation projects. You will independently identify and execute on research opportunities to support the development of new features or improvement of existing systems -- from prototyping through launch and live service. This role emphasizes a user researcher skillset -- including surveys, player labs, and market research -- to define the “why” for live and incubating features. If you’re looking to leverage your research toolkit and collaborate with designers and product owners to craft resonant multiplatform experiences, this is an excellent opportunity for you.

Responsibilities:

• Advise product teams by generating strategic frameworks and insights that guide the development of in-game and around game features for Wild Rift
• Design and execute on surveys and player labs in Wild Rift’s prioritized markets that support decision making by authentically representing player needs
• Conduct global qualitative research and provide actionable guidance for the games team in terms of trends, emerging risks, and opportunities
• Provide strategic insights to test design assumptions and inform products in development
• Leverage storytelling skills to expertly share your results with other Rioters, League of Legends leaders, and partner studios
• Collaborate with analysts and data scientists to construct holistic, multi-modal analyses

Required Qualifications:

• BA or BS in the social sciences, marketing or a related discipline
• 6+ years of experience in user experience research, behavioral or cognitive research, or market research
• Professional experience in survey craft and player lab design

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience working across Game Dev and Product Marketing teams
• Experience conducting market research or collaborating with market research vendors
• Experience in product design or business strategy for consumer-facing products
• Advanced capability in analysis software (SPSS, R, Excel, etc.)
• Previous research experience on video games

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!

Don’t forget to include a resume and cover letter. We receive a lot of applications, but we’ll notice a fun, well-written intro that shows us you take play seriously.