Staff Machine Learning Engineer - Game Tech Group, ML Platform

About the Position

As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Riot Games, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the next generation of our ML Platform. This role involves designing and scaling the infrastructure that powers a wide range of machine learning workloads and evolving AI systems across our games. You will be part of the ML Platform team, which builds and operates the shared infrastructure behind Riot’s AI ecosystem. Your work will focus on model deployment, observability, and lifecycle management, while also influencing the long-term direction of Riot’s ML platform. You will apply modern MLOps practices to improve reliability, scalability, and developer experience for teams building AI-powered products across Riot.

Responsibilities

• Design and operate AI & ML inference infrastructure, including deployment pipelines and CPU/GPU-aware orchestration
• Develop CI/CD workflows that enable rapid iteration and safe promotion from development to production
• Optimize infrastructure supporting varied model architectures, from foundation models to gradient boosted trees, for high throughput, low latency, and high availability
• Establish and evolve ML deployment best practices, including multi-version models, blue/green rollouts, shadow deployments, and rollback strategies
• Improve developer experience by reducing operational complexity and simplifying platform onboarding
• Influence long-term platform architecture and help shape technical direction across Riot’s ML ecosystem
• Collaborate with researchers and game teams to understand product needs and build reusable platform capabilities
• Use modern AI-assisted development tools and workflows thoughtfully to accelerate iteration, while maintaining engineering quality and reliability

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience in engineering, with time spent on ML/AI, platform or infrastructure teams
• Experience operating inference platforms such as KServe and production ML infrastructure including Feast, Milvus, or similar open-source systems
• Experience with one or more inference serving frameworks, including NVIDIA Triton/Dynamo, TorchServe, or similar systems
• Familiarity with GPU orchestration, performance tuning, and cost-aware scheduling
• Experience with CI/CD workflows, infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform), and artifact management
• Experience building and operating services within distributed or service-oriented architectures

Nice to Have

• Experience building ML infrastructure within a real-time, or latency-sensitive environment
• Hands-on experience with optimizing ML & AI deployments (LLMs, diffusion models, etc.) for throughput, latency and reliability
• Familiarity with agentic workflows and orchestration frameworks for LLM-based systems
• Passion for player experience, game systems, or creative technology development

We Offer

• Competitive base salary range between $229,200.00 - $319,500.00 USD + incentive compensation + equity + 401K with company match
• Comprehensive benefits including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
• Short and long-term disability coverage
• Open paid time off policy and flexible work schedules
• Parental leave for you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children

About the Company

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. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective every day. 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.