Game Development Director Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Producers at Riot lead passionate cross-functional teams to craft creative content and incredible experiences for our players. We encourage teams to collaborate and drive development, smashing through obstacles to deliver products into players' hands. We support concepting, building and delivering content at all stages of production
As a Sr. Manager, Game Production on an unannounced R&D product, you will own the production approach that turns creative ambition, product strategy, and team capabilities into clear plans, healthy operating rhythms, and shipped player value. You will help move games from early ideas through production, launch, and live operations. You will build production systems that create clarity without over-prescribing the work, helping the team adapt as the product, audience, and opportunity become clearer. You'll work through ambiguity, energized by hard tradeoffs, and work across design, art, engineering, product, QA, analytics, publishing, and external development. You will partner closely with game leadership and discipline leads to build and own the production operating model for the game. This includes how teams plan, make commitments, manage dependencies, use vendors and co-development partners, and prepare for future stages of development. You will help the team scale from a small, adaptive group into a larger production organization without losing momentum, accountability, or care for players and team health. You will report to the Director, Game Production.
Responsibilities:

• Own the game's production approach through each phase of development, helping the team make strong decisions today while preparing for future launch and live-service needs.
• Translate product strategy and creative direction into actionable plans, milestones, rituals, and decision-making systems.
• Partner with game leadership and discipline leads to align scope, quality, staffing, timelines, and delivery expectations.
• Lead cross-functional production across design, art, engineering, product, QA, analytics, publishing, and external development.
• Build scalable planning, dependency, risk, and accountability systems as the team grows.
• Identify delivery risks, organizational gaps, and execution constraints early; drive resolution with the appropriate leaders and teams.
• Manage production relationships with vendors, outsourcing teams, and co-development partners.
• Maintain clear visibility for stakeholders on progress, tradeoffs, risks, and decisions.
• Foster healthy team dynamics, strong feedback loops, psychological safety, and productive conflict.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of professional experience working in game production.
• 6+ years of in production leadership roles on cross-disciplinary game teams.
• Experience shipping at least one game or major game initiative with production responsibility from pre-production through launch.
• Background in cross-platform and live-service game development or live operations.
• Strong command of milestone planning, roadmap execution, dependency management, risk management, and launch readiness.
• Proven ability to lead through ambiguity, scale, changing priorities, and complex production tradeoffs.
• Strong cross-discipline fluency across game design, art, engineering, product, QA, analytics, publishing, and external development.
• Vendor, outsourcing, or co-development management background.
• Deep understanding of games, player audiences, team health, modern development tools, production technology, and emerging AI-enabled tools and workflows.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience as a Lead Producer, Principal Producer, Production Director, or equivalent senior production owner on a shipped game.
• Shipped and operated multiple cross-platform, multiplayer, or live-service games.
• Experience building production practices for a new game, new team, or ambiguous development environment as it scaled.
• Familiarity with studio operations, business planning, workforce planning, budgeting, player insights, economy, content operations, release management, or liveops planning.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise and a collaborative spirit that prioritizes the delight of players. We will look at your past studies and experience, but for this role, we also look for dedicated people with a personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this is the role for you!
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.