Principal Data Engineer (Personalization, Central Product Insights)

• As a Principal Data Engineer supporting Riot’s Central Product Insights, 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
• 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

Benefits

• Healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you as well as your spouse/domestic partner and children.
• Family Care: Life insurance, parental leave, plus short and long-term disability.
• Open Paid Time Off: In addition to holidays, a 2-week end of year break, and a 1-week mid-year break, Rioters are trusted to take the time they need throughout the year.
• Retirement: Riot matches retirement contributions so you can continue to play games long after you retire.
• Play Fund: Riot’s annual play fund allows Rioters to broaden their knowledge of the games that matter to players and the community.
• Donation Matching: Riot matches donations of time and money to nonprofits to double down on support.- 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
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field
• Proficiency in cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and Databricks
• Proven experience mentoring and guiding other engineers
• Strong Expertise in big-data technologies, including Python, GoLang, Spark, Scala, SQL, and tools like Airflow and dbt
• 8+ years experience in data engineering or a related field
• 8+ years experience in tech-focused Publishing or Marketing fields
• Track record improving data maturity ( e.g. SLI’s/SLO governance, reliability standards) Experience designing semantic layers or standardized business metric frameworks
• Experience in gaming, large consumer platforms, or systems leading data modernization or transformation initiatives in a complex environment
• Background supporting advanced analytics use cases in high velocity product environments
• Demonstrated ability to influence standards across teams in a matrixed organization
• 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!