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Senior Art Outsourcing Artist - R&D Shanghai

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played video game in the world, over 100 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience.

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.

That's where you come in.

As a Senior Art Outsourcing Artist, you will build meaningful and trusting external relationships through clear two-way communication and planning. Your approach will ensure sustainable production without compromising quality. A perfect blend between a veteran production artist and logistics expert, you will strive to make the outsourcing experience truly world-class and engaging for all parties involved.

This project is our new physical collectible trading card game featuring beloved Champions from the League of Legends universe. You'll be accountable for the quality and cohesion of the card illustrations Legends of Runeterra. You will work with a cross-discipline team of experienced developers and illustrators and manage partners to ensure a high quality bar for the end product.

As a Rioter in China, you'll join a team of internationally and culturally diverse professionals that share our prioritization of player experience, rejection of convention and maniacal passion for gaming.

To reinforce Riot’s collaborative culture in our China offices, we’ve decided to do away with the constraints of traditional hierarchical title structures that are more common in the region. Titles don’t really matter at any of Riot’s offices, but we chose to take this extra step in our China offices to foster a space where teamwork thrives. We believe that removing this constraint will promote individual autonomy, ownership, collaboration, and a focus on results. We promise you won’t need a title at Riot to make an impact.

Responsibilities:

We have a local Chinese partner that will be responsible for creating the physical cards. You'll communicate Riot's vision and feedback to the partner and serve as the voice for those teams. You will be the bridge between internal and external development. While we embrace technology to communicate, we also value spending time together and this role will require you occasionally to travel to vendor sites.

Logistics

• Internal pipelines - Learn the different internal team quality bars, processes and adapt outsourcing best practices for smooth integration.
• External Workflows - You will handle the workflow of all outsourced tasks. This will include organizing and leading all daily rituals, gathering all submissions by vendors, and presenting those submissions to the team for feedback. Once feedback is gathered you will clean it up and deliver it back to the vendors in a clear and understandable way.
• Onboarding - Partners will be onboarded according to Riot’s best practices with respect to vendor certification, engine setup, invoicing.

Creative

• Art quality maintenance support - You will leverage your art background in fixing issues, ensuring consistent quality across outsourced content and providing asset and integration support as necessary.
• External partner development - You will provide clear feedback and support with the intention to grow and develop partner capabilities during continued engagements. Showing not just the what, but also the why in the feedback. The partner should improve over time and achieve autonomy, requiring less feedback to hit our quality targets.
• Internal partnerships - You will establish healthy working agreements with artists and art leads to align on requirements for communication, interaction, education and feedback to develop the ability to direct external efforts.
• Problem Solving - You will remove roadblocks that hinder partner progress and keep track of recurring issues and develop a systemic solution.
• Documentation - Assist art/discipline leads in the creation of any required process documentation and style guides. Manage documentation for easy access.

Partner management

• Partner Management - Partners will have proper documentation, kick offs and guidance throughout engagements with a clear understanding of expectations.
• Asset Management - You will make sure our art assets are clean, organized and defined correctly so we can access them easily.
• Business relationship - Support managers in maintaining long term, mutually beneficial relationships with select vendors that provide the project with stable resourcing.

Contribute to the growth of team craft and capabilities

• Facilitate knowledge sharing around craft and outsourcing best practices.
• Advocate for direct reports ensuring appropriate level of recognition is given for their direct reports accomplishments.
• Knowledgeable of how all teams work and can proactively identify potential staffing gaps and escalate needs before bottlenecks arise.
• Drive and/or manage team organizational structural and staffing changes as needed

Required Qualifications:

• 6+ years of professional experience handling several art vendors concurrently, or professional experience working with multiple internal and external partners.
• Bilingual - Mandarin Chinese and English
• Strong speaking and presentation skills and ability to talk to technical staff, artists, and business leaders.
• Professional experience working on asset management and maintaining asset pipelines.

Desired Qualifications:

• 3+ years of professional experience in the games industry
• Professional experience creating and integrating art in a production environment.
• Professional experience working with an outsourcing team and process.
• Positive history of developing vendor relationships on a production title.
• Has shipped at least 1 title in a production, art or outsourcing role.

Don’t forget to include a resume and cover letter. We receive a lot of applications, but we’ll notice a fun, well-written intro that shows us you take play seriously.

Our Perks:

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the Summoner's Code and Community Code. Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of thriving together and our ongoing work to build the most inclusive company in gaming.