Principal Data Engineer

Riot’s Data Engineers harness petabytes of data and state-of-the-art processing technologies to build products that elevate the player experience at massive scale. Turning this data into meaningful insights is a complex challenge, and our engineers meet it by staying deeply player-focused and collaborating across diverse teams to improve the lives of millions of players worldwide.

As a Principal Data Engineer supporting Riot’s Publishing Platform team, you will design, build, and maintain scalable data pipelines and models that power critical data products, including centralized player data models, and publishing activity data systems. These systems support understanding of player onboarding funnels, engagement patterns, support efficiency, and content effectiveness. You will collaborate with product managers, analysts, and engineers to ensure our data infrastructure is reliable, performant, and directly tied to delivering better player experiences.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and optimize scalable ETL pipelines for structured and semi-structured data supporting Insights use cases, growth metrics, and other publishing/marketing focused data sets.
• Design and implement data models using industry best practices that capture a complete ecosystem view of in- and out-of-game experiences, while ensuring accuracy, scalability, and long-term usability.
• Architect and implement robust, maintainable, and high-performance data solutions.
• Automate workflows to reduce manual intervention and enhance data processing efficiency, including automation for content, growth, and pubsports areas of coverage.
• Mentor data engineers across all levels, setting best practices and fostering technical growth.
• Optimize query performance and resolve pipeline bottlenecks to improve data accessibility.
• Evaluate and adopt new tools, frameworks, and methodologies to advance data engineering capabilities.
• Support cost optimization by ensuring scalable and efficient data solutions.
• Ensure data quality, governance, and compliance with regulatory standards (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
• Contribute to Riot’s Data Engineering discipline shaping infrastructure, craft standards, tooling, and organizational best practices

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field.
• 8+ years experience in tech-focused Publishing or Marketing fields.
• 8+ years experience in data engineering or a related field.
• Strong Expertise in big-data technologies, including Python, GoLang, Spark, Scala, SQL, and tools like Airflow and dbt.
• Proficiency in cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and Databricks.
• Expertise in designing efficient and scalable data models with large data sets across multiple teams and in collaboration with insights or data stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, analytics, and product teams.
• Proven experience mentoring and guiding other engineers.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes your fellow Rioters, who are the customers of your work. Being a dedicated fan of games is not necessary for this position!

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.