Manager, Insights - Riot Discovery Studio Insights

Sentient; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Life insurance

Parental leave

401(k) with company match

Flexible work schedules

Job summary

Riot Games is seeking a Manager, Insights to lead a team delivering critical research and validation for Riot Discovery Studio Insights (RDSI). You will guide studies, mentor researchers, and shape how we inform game direction with data-driven insights.

You will oversee labs, usability tests, and multi-modal research, partnering with production and design leadership to influence experiences and roadmaps across future games.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree plus 4 years of game development research experience.
• Bachelor's degree plus 6 years of game development research experience.
• Experience running playtests and usability studies.
• Experience multi-modal audience research (surveys, focus groups, etc.).
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative data analyses.
• Experience managing other researchers.
• Experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder projects.
• Experience synthesizing and presenting data for impact.

Responsibilities

• Drive user research efforts on game teams in partnership with production and design leadership.
• Construct and perform labs, studies, and surveys to answer business, design, and usability questions.
• Ensure the quality of research delivered by your team.
• Support the RDSI lead in expanding capabilities and processes.
• Advise game teams on prioritization of research efforts and roadmaps.
• Manage and grow junior and mid-level researchers.
• Inform best practices and standards for user research in RDS.
• Present results to game and RDS leadership with clear impact.

Skills

Leadership

User research

Qualitative analysis

Quantitative analysis

Project management

Stakeholder communication

Education

Advanced degree in Psychology/related field +4 years

Bachelor's degree in Psychology/related field +6 years

Job description

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 gamers around the world. We believe that illuminating the globally diverse experiences, behaviors, and needs of gamers 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 Manager, Insights on the Riot Discovery Studio Insights (RDSI) team, you’ll oversee the efforts of one or more team members delivering critical insights and validation to our R&D games. You and your direct reports will conduct studies and analyses to inform the direction, experience, and systems of Riot’s future games. You will report to the research lead of RDSI and contribute to their overall efforts to lead the team and grow its capabilities. These responsibilities will include: helping to ensure the overall quality of insights delivered, supporting/driving team processes, and generating new ideas or capabilities that improve how we do research. Your research skill set, strong communication skills, and mentorship capabilities will ensure that we have a high function and efficient centralized research team that can help ensure our games have the information they need about their audience to make games in a player focused way. You will report to the Sr. Manager, Insights on the team.

Responsibilities:

• Drive user research efforts on game teams in partnership with production and design leadership on high complexity, ambiguous problem spaces to help direct the experience of our new games, systems, and features.
• Construct and perform labs, studies, and surveys - sometimes with novel or complex methodologies - designed to answer business, design, development, and usability questions.
• Ensure the quality of research delivered by your direct reports.
• Support the RDSI lead in their efforts to improve our broad capabilities in providing insights to game teams.
• Support discussions on prioritization of research efforts, balancing the research needs of game teams and the central research team.
• Advise game teams in a strategic capacity, helping to inform their game thesis and roadmap for Insights and validation.
• Manage and grow more junior and mid-level researchers.
• Inform operational best practices and craft standards for user research in RDS.
• Share your results with game and RDS leadership in clear, illustrative presentations that drive meaningful impact.

Required Qualifications:

• Education background in oneof the following categories:
  • Advanced degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Human Factors or a related discipline plus 4 years of relevant research experience in game development
  • Bachelor's degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline plus 6 years of relevant research experience in game development.
• Experience running playtests and usability tests in a variety of paradigms, potentially including moderated testing, unmoderated testing, focused feature-specific testing, holistic and longitudinal testing, and more complex or constrained testing paradigms.
• Experience conducting multi-modal audience and/or market research potentially including large scale surveys, moderated research communities, focus groups, and persona/profile generation.
• Experience doing qualitative and quantitative data analysis.
• Experience managing other researchers.
• Experience leading complex projects with multiple collaborators and work streams.
• Experience synthesizing and presenting data for maximum impact and understanding.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience conducting games user research during the early stages of the development lifecycle, particularly incubation, prototype, and pre-production.
• Familiarity with basic statistical methods for data analysis (regressions, correlations, factor analyses).
• Experience working on multiple different types of games.
• Experience managing vendors.
• Mandarin fluency preferred, along with prior experience collaborating with teams in China.

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!

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 SanFrancisco 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.