Principal Machine Learning Engineer (Gamedev)

TL;DR

Principal Machine Learning Engineer (Gamedev): Responsible for the strategy, design, and implementation of AI/ML-driven capabilities for one of Riot’s new games with an accent on empowering the team to deliver great player experiences. Focus on conceptualizing, planning, implementing, and maintaining AI-powered solutions to increase developer efficiency.

Location: Los Angeles, USA

Salary: $229,200.00 - $319,500.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match + medical, dental, vision, and life insurance + short and long-term disability + open PTO.

Company

Riot Games is dedicated to creating games and experiences that make it better to be a player, emphasizing collaboration and unique perspectives.

What you will do

• Define the strategic direction of the AI/ML space on the team.
• Discover and conceptualize opportunities for AI-powered workflow enhancements.
• Lead the application of AI/ML systems to solve developer problems.
• Collaborate with developers to scope, architect, implement, and test AI/ML-based solutions.
• Partner with central teams to create reusable training and evaluation pipelines.
• Advance engineering best practices, including code quality and automated testing.

Requirements

• 10+ years of professional experience in software engineering.
• Experience delivering AI/ML systems in production, ideally within real-time or interactive environments.
• Strong background in reinforcement learning, imitation learning, decision-making under uncertainty, LLM, or AI planning.
• Experience working in a AAA game engine (i.e. Unity, Unreal, etc.).
• Proven ability to navigate ambiguity and solve complex problems with minimal support.
• Proficiency in C++.

Nice to have

• Experience implementing tools for developers.
• Proficiency working with modern ML/data science libraries and frameworks such as PyTorch/TensorFlow, pandas, etc.
• Experience implementing framework-level UI systems.
• Experience in infrastructure and MLOps.
• Experience mentoring technical ICs and contributing to engineering culture.

Culture & Benefits

• Focus on work/life balance with an open paid time off policy and flexible work schedules.
• Medical, dental, and life insurance.
• Parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children.
• 401k with company match.