Senior UX Designer – Unpublished R&D Product
Riot is looking for an experienced Senior UX Designer to join our Sydney-based team and help create player-centered experiences for an Unpublished R&D Product. Riot’s mission is to put players at the centre of everything we do. We achieve this by continuing to create, evolve, and deliver new experiences with games like Teamfight Tactics, League of Legends and VALORANT.
As a Senior UX Designer working on an Unpublished R&D Product, you will own the design of significant player-facing features and help shape the product and feature vision. You’ll work across complex and often ambiguous problem spaces, partnering with designers, artists, engineers, producers, and other stakeholders to understand player needs and turn product goals into intuitive, accessible, and engaging experiences.
Your work will span discovery, strategy, interaction design, interface design, prototyping, and implementation. You’ll lead UX direction for features, establish alignment across disciplines, communicate design rationale, and support the team in delivering a cohesive player experience. You will report to a Senior Design Leader supporting the R&D Game Team.
Responsibilities:
- Own UX design for significant player-facing features and systems from early discovery through implementation and iteration.
- Lead the exploration and conceptualization of UX opportunities, helping teams clarify player problems, product goals, and success measures.
- Define and communicate UX direction through appropriate design artifacts, including strategy and alignment frameworks, research and discovery outcomes, journey maps, flows, wireframes, mockups, prototypes, and implementation documentation.
- Translate complex ideas into intuitive interaction and interface designs informed by player needs, usability principles, and project goals.
- Establish and evolve UX patterns and design system contributions that improve consistency and quality across relevant game experiences.
- Partner closely with engineering, UI, and technical teams during implementation to resolve design challenges, support prototypes, and help ensure a high-quality final experience.
- Facilitate design reviews and communicate design decisions clearly, influencing cross-functional partners and incorporating feedback from players and development teams.
- Collaborate with research, playtest, and analytics partners to plan evaluations, synthesize findings, and use evidence to improve the player experience.
- Consider platform and multiplatform needs when developing solutions that support the product’s broader experience strategy.
- Raise the quality of UX practice on the team by sharing knowledge, modelling strong collaboration, and supporting the growth of other designers.
Required Qualifications:
- 6+ years of experience as a UX, Interaction, or Product Designer working on digital products or games, or equivalent depth of experience.
- Proven experience owning end-to-end design for complex features, systems, or products in collaboration with cross-functional teams.
- Strong interaction and interface design skills, with proficiency in Figma for design systems, prototyping, presentation, and communicating implementation intent.
- Experience navigating complex and ambiguous problems, creating clarity, and making sound design decisions with cross-disciplinary stakeholders.
- Ability to articulate a compelling UX direction and influence product, design, engineering, and production partners.
- Strong communication, facilitation, and presentation skills across design and non-design audiences.
- A portfolio demonstrating thoughtful, player-centered design process and shipped or implemented work.
Desired Qualifications:
- BA/BS degree in Human-Computer Interaction, Graphic Design, Communication Design, or equivalent experience.
- Experience designing for games, social platforms, or live digital services.
- Familiarity with Unreal Engine or other game development tools for implementation and prototyping.
- Experience with user research, usability testing, playtesting, analytics, or analyzing player feedback.
- Experience contributing to or leading design systems, interaction patterns, or multiplatform experiences.
- Experience working on distributed or cross-studio teams.
- Experience mentoring designers or contributing to UX craft standards and best practices.
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!
We will review your work as part of the application process, so please provide a portfolio link or work samples with 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 co-op gaming areas, a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of 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:
- Medical Insurance that covers you and your dependents
- Employee Assistance Program
- Wellness fund
- Donation matching of time and money to registered charities
- Learning and Development opportunities
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.