Manager, Software Engineering, Game Understanding Agents - Game Tech Group

The ML Bots team builds Game Understanding Agents that power in-game player experiences across Riot’s live titles and games in development. These agents combine advanced modeling with robust platform systems to deliver engaging, adaptive, and trustworthy in-game behavior.

As Engineering Manager for ML Bots, you will lead scientists and engineers on engagements with game teams. You will set the technical approach for game-specific ML integrations, including state and action modeling, in-engine state representation, mapping player inputs into agents’ action space, and inference on game clients and game servers.  These ML-driven gameplay capabilities must integrate seamlessly with production platforms. Your work will balance game needs with the creation and extension of reusable systems. Your team will deploy game-specific ML integrations, enhancing player experiences. They will support rule-based and policy-based agents, often using simulations for training and evaluation. This includes developing reusable integration workflows, serving patterns, and platform contributions. Your team will also ensure systems meet performance, reliability, and compliance targets, enabling titles to explore genres, validate gameplay, and accelerate iteration.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage scientists and engineers delivering ML-powered game AI integrations for specific game engagements.
• Set the technical approach for integration workflows and platform connections, such as serving systems, data and feature pipelines, and evaluation environments.
• Ensure modeling and integration solutions (e.g., state/action models, perception systems, decision logic) meet game design goals, product requirements, and operational constraints.
• Collaborate with platform, data, and research teams to design systems that are reusable, maintainable, and aligned with shared ML infrastructure patterns.
• Oversee the deployment of ML integrations into live environments, ensuring scalability, observability, and compliance with varying regional operating environments.
• Manage performance, career growth, and mentorship for your team, developing technical and leadership skills toward senior craft levels.
• Maintain a strong developer experience for the team, including CI/CD pipelines, tools, and operational practices that support reliability and fast iteration.
• Facilitate communication and alignment across game teams, platform teams, and partner functions.

Required Qualifications:

• 6+ years of industry experience, including hands-on work in applied ML, ML systems engineering, or game AI.
• 2+ years of engineering management experience, including hiring, performance management, and career development.
• Meets or exceeds the technical bar for a staff level engineer; capable of contributing to technical design, code reviews, and system integration.
• Proven experience delivering ML or AI systems in production, ideally in interactive or real-time environments.
• Familiarity with platform components such as model serving, feature platforms, simulation environments, and observability tooling.
• Experience designing and deploying ML integrations across varying regional operating environments (e.g., China, MENA, Americas, SEA).
• Strong collaboration skills and the ability to align technical and product stakeholders across disciplines.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this could be your role!

 

Our Perks:

Riot focuses on work/life balance, shown by our open paid time off policy and other perks such as flexible work schedules. We offer medical, dental, and life insurance, parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

 

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. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security. 

Client-provided location(s): Los Angeles, CA

Job ID: 7177107

Employment Type: OTHER

Posted: 2025-08-27T18:31:15