Senior Manager, Software Engineering, Platform Engineering - VALORANT

Riot engineers bring deep knowledge of specific technical areas but also value the opportunity to work in many broader domains. As a Senior Engineering Manager, you will gain organizational alignment by building a strong engineering vision and offering creative solutions to organizational design. You’ll also serve as a mentor for a team of engineers and managers, overseeing performance management, growth opportunities, and accountability.

On VALORANT Foundations, we build the platforms, services, and operational systems that enable VALORANT to ship continuously at global scale.

As a Senior Manager, Software Engineering on the VALORANT Platform Engineering team, you will lead the engineering organization responsible for how VALORANT builds, releases, deploys, and operates its game client, dedicated servers, and live service ecosystem. This includes the platform and workflows powering Unreal Engine build pipelines, game microservices build pipelines, release orchestration, service environments, load testing, and operational tooling across Riot and Tencent ecosystems globally. As well as ownership of core Player facing game services including provisioning, configuration, and administration.

We’re looking for a leader who understands how large-scale game services and operational ecosystems fit together - and who can help evolve those systems into a more scalable, reliable, and developer-friendly platform for the future of VALORANT. You’ll partner closely with teams across Riot and Tencent to improve release velocity, operational excellence, and service reliability for a globally distributed live game.

This role reports to the Director of Engineering for VALORANT Foundations.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and grow a distributed organization of engineers and engineering managers across Los Angeles, Seattle, and Sydney
• Define the technical and organizational strategy for VALORANT’s core services, build, release, live operations, and developer infrastructure ecosystem
• Drive improvements to how VALORANT builds, validates, deploys, and operates Unreal game clients, dedicated servers, and backend services globally
• Partner with Riot and Tencent engineering teams to improve reliability, release velocity, operational visibility, and developer workflows across regions
• Establish technical direction across build infrastructure, release engineering, service orchestration, observability, and operational excellence practices
• Influence cross-team architecture, engineering standards, and organizational decisions affecting VALORANT’s long-term scalability and live service reliability
• Mentor engineering leaders and senior engineers while fostering a culture of ownership, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including experience building or operating large-scale external customer-facing backend systems, game services, or cloud platforms
• 4+ years of engineering management experience leading engineers and engineering managers
• Experience leading organizations responsible for live service infrastructure, release engineering, developer platforms, or operational systems at scale
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, service reliability, deployment workflows, and operational excellence practices
• Experience driving technical strategy and influencing architecture across multiple teams or organizations
• Professional experience with cloud infrastructure and modern backend technologies such as Go, Java, C#, or similar

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience supporting or shipping large-scale live games
• Experience with Unreal Engine build, deployment, or development ecosystems
• Experience leading or modernizing CI/CD, release engineering, or developer infrastructure platforms
• Experience improving observability, reliability, and operational tooling for service-oriented architectures
• Experience working within globally distributed engineering organizations

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 the experiences of players, this could be the role for you!

Our Perks:

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 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, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, 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. 

(Los Angeles Only) Base salary range between $229,200.00 - $319,500.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.

(Mercer Island only) Base salary range between $229,200.00 - $319,500.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.