Principal Software Engineer - Developer Connections, Game Release

Location: Not specified in the posting

Company

Riot Games develops and operates games and player-facing experiences, with Developer Connections providing shared systems for game studios, R&D, and Central Tech.

What you will do

• Define the technical direction and strategy for centralized game release capabilities.
• Partner with game teams to understand release constraints and address production needs.
• Lead architecture across game clients, servers, backend services, content, configuration, and publishing workflows.
• Drive technical decisions that improve release predictability, safety, and delivery velocity.
• Advise leadership, build cross-team alignment, and influence adoption of shared release systems.
• Diagnose complex production blockers and guide solutions through to release.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience developing and shipping at least one live-operated game.
• Deep expertise in game shipping lifecycles, production workflows, platform constraints, and live operations.
• Experience across game clients, game servers, backend services, configuration, content pipelines, or release orchestration.
• Strong hands-on experience designing, building, debugging, and maintaining large-scale production systems.
• Proven crisis-response, problem-solving, technical leadership, and stakeholder-management skills.

Nice to have

• Experience in release engineering, deployment systems, publishing systems, or live game operations.
• Experience shipping games across multiple platforms or regions, including console or mobile.
• Experience building shared technical capabilities for multiple game teams.
• Experience in central platform or developer infrastructure teams.
• Experience moving bespoke workflows toward scalable common patterns.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative environment focused on technical craft, cross-team trust, and player impact.
• Open paid time off and flexible work schedules.
• Medical, dental, and life insurance.
• Parental leave for employees and eligible family members.
• 401(k) with company match.