The Opportunity ✨

• True Ownership: As a Founding Engineer, you will make critical architectural decisions that will shape our platform for years to come.
• Validated Product: We already have a large customer engagement locked in and are targeting a major go-live later this year. No building in a vacuum here.

The Tech Stack 🛠️

• Python
• TypeScript
• AI / Machine Learning integrations
• AWS

What We’re Looking For 🔍

• Location: 100% Remote, but US-based only (open to Full-Time, Freelance contract structures).
• Skillset: Strong engineering fundamentals, a track record of building scalable/reliable systems, and the ability to own a product vertical end-to-end.
• Bonus Points: Experience in healthcare/biopharma or hands-on experience with AI/ML technologies.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end ML solutions for player-facing problems across personalization, game systems, and matchmaking, from problem framing through production launch and ongoing iteration.
• Set technical direction for a League ML domain and create reusable modeling, evaluation, and operating patterns that raise the bar beyond your immediate team.
• Build models, recommenders, ranking systems, and decision logic that help players discover the right champions, builds, modes, content, and return paths based on their needs and context.
• Develop ML approaches that improve in-game systems and matchmaking quality, balancing player experience, fairness, reliability, and operational constraints.
• Partner closely with product managers, designers, analysts, and engineers to shape ambiguous opportunities into clear technical plans and shipped player-facing features.
• Translate gameplay, behavioral, and product telemetry into reliable signals and evaluation frameworks.
• Design and run experiments to evaluate model quality, player impact, and system tradeoffs.
• Work directly with game and service engineers to integrate models into League systems and services, including helping define instrumentation and telemetry when needed.
• Operate independently across multiple partner groups, driving multi-month work with limited day-to-day oversight.
• Contribute to the ML engineering community at Riot through peer reviews, documentation, craft standards, and shared learnings.
• Help establish robust monitoring, observability, and support practices for live ML systems as they scale.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 6+ years of experience delivering ML systems in production, including 3+ years in applied modeling or ML research roles.
• Evidence that your modeling choices have been adopted beyond your immediate team — whether through reusable patterns, shared architectures, or influence on how others approach problems.
• History of working with complex or unconventional data sources where off-the-shelf feature engineering doesn’t apply.
• Experience in production environments with interacting models, feedback loops, or systems where model behavior has downstream consequences beyond a single prediction.
• Comfort with ambiguity — you’ve shipped in situations where the success metric, the right approach, or both were unclear at the start.
• Track record mentoring engineers across roles and levels; evidence of raising the bar for people around you.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Background in reinforcement learning, imitation learning, generative models, or simulation-based training in interactive environments is a plus.
• Experience bridging research and production — translating papers or prototypes into reliable shipped systems — is a plus.
• Familiarity with ML platform components (model serving, feature stores, ML observability) is a plus.
• Passion for player experience, games, or creative technology.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience building ML systems for games, live service products, consumer personalization, or other player-facing digital products.
• Experience with matchmaking, recommendations, multi-objective optimization, or other systems that must balance competing goals.
• Familiarity with causal inference, uplift modeling, contextual bandits, reinforcement learning, or other approaches useful for adaptive player experiences.
• Experience integrating models into latency-sensitive or high-reliability production environments.
• Experience defining telemetry or instrumentation needs in close partnership with software engineers.
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices, including fairness, safety, transparency, and operational trustworthiness.
• Comfort collaborating across a central craft organization and an embedded product team model.

For this role, you’ll find success through

• Strong applied ML craft
• Independent execution in ambiguous spaces
• Thoughtful collaboration with product, design, engineering, and Insights partners
• Decision-making that prioritizes player value and long-term system health

Our Perks:

• 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

What you’ll do

• Medical, Dental and Vision Plans Available
• Fully remote work
• 401k with Company Matching Program
• Virtual Staff Events
• Employee Assistance Plans
• Flexible Annual Leave
• Company Shares Opportunity
• Salary range $90k-110k dependent upon experience

• Location: Remote (Requires overlap with US business hours)

• Attend on technical interviews
• Clearly communicate our team's technical capabilities and project experience.
• Coordinate with our software developers before and after meetings.

• English proficiency at C1 level or higher.
• 6+ years of professional software development experience.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to understand technical requirements and explain software solutions.
• Availability for approximately 10 hours per week.

• Starting rate: $30+/hour
• Payment method: Cryptocurrency (if legally permitted in your jurisdiction and by mutual agreement).
• Opportunity for increased compensation after successful engagement.

• Approximately 10 hours per week.
• Schedule depends on client interviews and meetings.
• Meetings may occur during U.S. and European business hours.

• Work: customer support (phone/chat/email) or content moderation for large tech platforms
• Languages: one of the above at C1 + working English (training is in English)
• Pay: roughly 1100-1600 EUR net/month depending on project, language and bonuses. My numbers, other projects may differ
• Relocation: option of a room in a company flat (200 EUR/month deducted from salary), flight reimbursed after ~9 months
• Paid training (~4 weeks), health insurance from day 1, meal card, 22 days paid leave
• Requirements: 18+, right to work in the EU. No degree or experience needed for most roles