Principal User Researcher - Research and Development Riot Games
Los Angeles, CA

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, that focus on bringing an astute understanding of players to Riot. We join together to represent and advocate for players from around the world. We believe that illuminating the globally diverse experiences, behaviors, and needs of players is essential to Riot living up to our player-focused mission. We're a group united by our love of games, science, and helping others succeed. Do you embody player empathy and care deeply about the experiences of your audience (our players)? If so, this could be the role for you.

As a Principal User Researcher, you'll be part of a highly focused Insights team that works to improve how Riot does R&D in general. You'll work closely with Insights leadership as well as leaders in our R&D space. You'll conduct studies and analyses that will inform the direction, experience, systems, and features of Riot's new games. You will also help level up the research discipline by utilizing your background in games user research to drive vision for how playtesting will be used & executed for new games. You will also provide mentorship to other User Researchers throughout the organization. Your scientific skill-set coupled with your audience insight will ensure that we are crafting new games in a player-focused way.

As a key member of our R&D team, you'll work closely 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, and critical thinking skills to contribute to the success of our teams. You are a master at identifying and executing research activities, and will support from initial game direction all the way through post-implementation evaluation. You have experience conducting qualitative research via player labs, focus groups, and interviews to understand both player sentiment toward these systems and content as well as their general usability.

Responsibilities:

* You will partner with designers and producers on games teams to generate insights and frameworks that will help direct the experience of our new games, as well as systems, and features. You will also establish what good looks like for playtesting and user research in new game development and establish & execute improved processes across R&D
* You will be an effective advocate for our players and provide strategic guidance about their wants, needs, and behaviors
* You will provide strategic insights to playtest teams' assumptions and inform their actions
* You will construct, organize, and execute 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, actionable feedback
* Share your results with other Rioters in clear, illustrative presentations
* Mentor other researchers, helping them learn from your own experiences

Required Skills:

* Advanced degree in Psychology, Anthropology, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related discipline
* Minimum of 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
* Utilization of presentation software (Google Slides, Tableau, etc.)
* Capability in analysis software of choice (SPSS, R, Excel, etc.)

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).