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Sr. Manager, Insights - Unpublished R&D Product

As a Researcher, you’ll join the Insights discipline – the group of researchers, analysts, data scientists, and strategists responsible for solving problems and executing analyses that enable Rioters to make difficult decisions with confidence. You’ll be part of an interdisciplinary team and work closely with Rioters from other disciplines (designers, artists, producers, etc.) to conduct studies and analyses that will inform the features, systems, and experiences of our products. Your applied or experimental research background coupled with your deep understanding of data will ensure that you’re an effective advocate for players and can provide strategic guidance about their wants, needs, and behaviors.

As a Senior Manager, Insights on the R&D Office team , you’ll report to the Director of Strategic Advisory. You'll be part of the R&D Strategic Research team, partnering with leaders on prototype and early pre-production game projects in the R&D Office as well as R&D Office leadership. You’ll build and manage a games user research team that will conduct studies and analyses to inform the direction, experience, systems, and features of Riot's new games from incubation through pre-production. In collaboration with your team and partners, you will develop & implement your vision for how research will be used and performed for new games in the R&D Office. Your team's scientific skill-set coupled with audience insight will ensure that we are crafting new games in a player-focused way.

Responsibilities:

• Build and manage a team that drives user research efforts on prototype game teams in R&D Office on high complexity, ambiguous problem spaces to help direct the experience of our new games, systems, and features.
• Drive craft standards and operational practices for playtesting and user research in new game development across R&D Office, including defining how playtesting fits into lifecycle gates and milestone development
• Formal management, workforce planning, staffing, and hiring for games user researchers in R&D Strategic Research
• Lead, mentor, and support career growth for games user researchers on R&D Office
• Be an advocate for our players and provide strategic guidance about their wants, needs, and behaviors
• Construct and perform labs, studies, and surveys - sometimes with novel or complex methodologies - designed to answer business, design, development, and usability questions
• Share your results with game and R&D Office leadership in clear, illustrative presentations that drive meaningful change
• Contribute to R&D Office level strategy and operations as part of the R&D Strategic Research team

Required Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Human Factors or a related discipline plus at least 5 years of relevant research experience in game development OR Bachelors degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline plus at least 7 years of relevant research experience in game development
• 2+ years experience building or managing a high performing research team in the games industry
• Experience driving organizational change and a history structuring out nebulous spaces
• Experience leading complex projects with multiple collaborators and work streams
• 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 with a variety of research methodologies beyond playtesting; for example survey research, ethnography, diary studies, focus groups or interviews, and concept tests
• Familiarity with basic statistical methods for data analysis (regressions, correlations, factor analyses)

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience conducting games user research or leading games user research teams during the early stages of the development life cycle, particularly incubation, prototype, and pre-production
• Experience building and leading cross-functional teams
• Experience in Strategic Advisory crafts beyond research; including business strategy, analytics, revenue strategy, finance, or player growth.
• Experience managing vendors
• Experience partnering with support teams, like research operations, to guide their development and maximize their impact
• Experience working with leadership at the “team of teams” level on strategic and operational problems

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).