Head of Data Engineering: Player Lifecycle & Personalization

Riot Games; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 350,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare plans

Parental leave

Open Paid Time Off

Retirement matching

Play Fund

Donation matching

Job summary

Riot Games seeks a senior data leader to define and execute the data strategy for Player Lifecycle & Personalization across the company. You will establish trusted data products and models to support engagement, retention, personalization, experimentation, and AI-driven experiences.

You will partner with Product, Insights, Data Science, and AI leaders to translate business needs into scalable data capabilities, while guiding modernization of the data ecosystem, governance, and quality.

Qualifications

• Experience building data products and data capabilities that support lifecycle management, personalization, customer intelligence, loyalty, CRM.
• 5+ years of people leadership experience, including leading managers and senior technical leaders.
• Experience leading data engineering, ML engineering, data platform, analytics engineering, or customer intelligence teams.
• Strong leadership building teams, developing managers, and delivering through others.
• Deep understanding of modern data platforms, governance, and data quality practices including AI platforms.
• Proven ability to partner with Product, Analytics, Data Science, Engineering, and executives.
• Experience defining strategy and operating in ambiguous environments.
• 12+ years in data engineering, data platforms, analytics engineering, or related disciplines.
• Experience with large-scale data platforms in gaming or adjacent consumer products.
• Familiarity with large-scale experimentation platforms and cross-surface measurement.
• Experience with autonomous AI coding platforms and metadata tooling (e.g., Devin, Databricks, Atlan).
• Experience leading platform-focused engineering organizations and distributed teams.
• Experience supporting machine learning, experimentation, and AI-driven products.
• Experience leading data modernization and organizational data maturity initiatives.
• Gaming industry experience is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the data strategy for Player Lifecycle & Personalization across Riot Games.
• Establish trusted data products, data models, and intelligence capabilities supporting engagement and personalization.
• Partner with Product, Insights, Data Science, and AI leaders to translate needs into scalable data capabilities.
• Lead modernization of Riot’s data ecosystem, improving quality, governance, observability, and accountability.
• Drive standardization of player data, business metrics, and semantic definitions across teams.
• Build and grow a high-performing organization of managers and senior engineers.
• Define long-term investment priorities and roadmap for Player Lifecycle & Personalization data capabilities.
• Communicate strategy, priorities, risks, and outcomes to senior leadership.

Skills

Data strategy

People leadership

Data products

Experimentation

AI platforms

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Databricks

Atlan

Devin

Job description

Riot Games seeks a senior data leader to define and execute the data strategy for Player Lifecycle & Personalization across the company. You will establish trusted data products and models to support engagement, retention, personalization, experimentation, and AI-driven experiences.

You will partner with Product, Insights, Data Science, and AI leaders to translate business needs into scalable data capabilities, while guiding modernization of the data ecosystem, governance, and quality.