Technical Game Designer

Description

As one of the most popular PC games today, League of Legends is reshaping PC gaming and core gamers perception of virtual goods. Riot Games (named a Top 30 developer by Game Developer Magazine), the publisher and developer of League of Legends, is experiencing a period of rapid growth, doubling the size of the company in the past year. With over 4 MM players in their debut title across the US and Europe, and numerous awards (including IGN.com’s Readers' Choice for Best Multiplayer Game for League of Legends), Riot Games has also pioneered an innovative live development model and is looking to expand its production capabilities.

As part of that growth, we have a great opportunity for a junior to mid level Technical Game Designer in our Los Angeles, CA office. This opportunity is best suited for trained software engineers who want to switch to start a career in game design, or designers who have recently stopped being programmers. The ideal candidate will be a gamer with a passion for team-based online multiplayer gaming. Applicants must also be able to remain positive and work effectively and efficiently in a team-oriented environment.

Responsibilities (to include but not limited to):
•Work closely with designers, engineers, artists and producers to design, lead, tune and implement various aspects of League of Legends and/or unannounced projects.
•Perform typical design responsibilities of both designing systems and pieces of content, and then implementing them.
•Be the "go to" person for complex implementations of design content, and for shepherding projects that require heavy programmer/designer interaction.
•As needed, act as a C++ gameplay software engineer no more than 50% of the time (generally closer to 35%, with some weeks at 0% and occasional emergencies near 100%). We are willing to consider candidates with elite flex, flash and Java experience, but it is a less ideal fit.
•Be an example to other designers in writing clever, elegant, maintainable implementations within designer tools.
•This is primarily a game design role - but the requirements skew towards engineering.