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Principal User Researcher - Research and Development

As a Principal User Researcher, you'll be part of a the Insights team, reporting into the Insights Manager. You will improve how Riot does R&D in general, partnering with Insights leadership and leaders in our R&D space. You'll conduct studies and analyses to inform the direction, experience, systems, and features of Riot's new games. You will help level up the research discipline by using your background in games user research to guide vision for how playtesting will be used and performed for new games. Providing mentorship to other User Researchers throughout the organization, you will help grow the team around you. Your scientific skill-set coupled with your audience insight will ensure that we are crafting new games in a player-focused way.

As a member of our R&D team, you’ll partner with many teams within R&D to improve our playtesting strategy and execution across many products, with a focus on early stage games. You’ll use your research background, understanding of the market, familiarity with game development to contribute to the success of our teams. You are a master at building research activities, and will support from initial game direction all the way through post-implementation evaluation.

Responsibilities:

• You will partner with designers and producers on games teams to create insights and frameworks to help direct the experience of our new games, systems, and features. You will also establish what good looks like for playtesting and user research in new game development and establish and build improved processes across R&D
• You will be an advocate for our players and provide strategic guidance about their wants, needs, and behaviors
• You'll provide strategic insights to playtest teams’ assumptions and inform their actions
• Construct and perform studies and surveys designed to answer business, development, and usability questions
• Design and moderate labs, guiding participants through a set of tasks and prompting them for candid, relevant feedback
• Share your results with other Rioters in clear, illustrative presentations
• Mentor other researchers, helping them learn from your experiences

Required Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in Psychology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline
• 5+ years experience in applied or experimental research in a game development context
• Experience running playtests and usability tests, including: moderated testing, unmoderated testing, focused feature-specific testing, holistic and longitudinal testing, and more complex or constrained testing paradigms
• Confirmed experience driving organizational change and a history structuring out nebulous spaces

Desired Qualifications:

• Use presentation software (Google Slides, Tableau, etc.)
• Capability in analysis software of choice (SPSS, R, Excel, etc.)

Our Perks:

We offer medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children. Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage are also available. Riot will support your retirement benefits with a company match, and double down on your donations of time and money to non-profit charitable organizations. Balance between work and personal life is encouraged with open paid time off, and a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your personal relationship with games.

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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, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history (LAMC 189.00).