Pros
Flexible schedule The hours are flexible, which is awesome. No one is actively babysitting you (unlike much of the corporate world these days). Feel free to shuffle your hours around as long as you make all of your (MANY) meetings, which in practice puts a damper on that flexibility. Better stay a couple hours late, so you have time to actually do the work we talked about in all those meetings. Your work can touch a massive audience That is, if it's in the 5-10% of things we do that actually see the light of day. Most projects are a complete mess and get rebooted constantly. It's demoralizing when players complain about needing feature or product X that we've been working on for years, but will probably never ship due to internal politics. Some Riot time might look good on a resume because of our reach, but don't plan on Riot being good for your portfolio, or your confidence. Play League of Legends at work You should, because you'll need some kind of stress relief from the insanity, if you can squeeze a game in between meetings. Again, super cool benefit but kind of hampered by the reality of Riot life. The other double-edged sword is that people get really loud when they play. If your work schedule doesn't match up to your neighbors' prepare for constant distraction as they shout profanities at each other across the room. Lots of free food Remember the freshman 15? Try the Riot 20! This is how Riot shows it's love. Catered meetings and presentations, late night dinner subsidies, adult beverages at company wide events. It's really nice for the first few months. The numerous college-aged kids at Riot get excited about it a lot longer, but it's appeal can only last so long. Benefits This is one of the few areas where Riot shines. Primarily because it is easy to throw a chunk of money at the people team and there's not a lot of politics involved. If your SO doesn't have their own coverage, Riot will subsidize them as if they are an employee, which is a very nice gesture and is probably very useful to some Rioters. 401k match is decent too.
Cons
Ineffective leadership Titles don't matter, except when they do. What passes for autonomy here is a lot of theoretical talk about possible directions we can go among the masses at Riot, but the actual decisions are all still made in closed door meetings between product owners and top leaders. Once teams observe this effect, they tend to flail around trying to please the leadership. There's a real sense that no one at the top really understands which of our early decisions caused our success and which were the decisions we succeeded in spite of, so many of our leaders are afraid to make the kind of bold decisions we need to raise quality to where we want it. Painful conversations often just get kicked down the road, so we trudge on with the status quo. Many mid to upper level managers are inexperienced and/or insensitive, causing pockets of poor morale and patterns of avoidance. Our values often ring false One example: we use that word humbitious (ambitious but humble). Honestly, I think we are starting to fail at both. There's a lack of urgency in the decision making progress, because it feels like we automatically rake in a fortune no matter what we do, so why rock the boat? The humble part is fading too. There are a lot of alpha types that dominate conversations and leave little room for healthy debate. Nobody is really keeping these people in check, and they are found in many leadership positions. We're overly focused on hiring over internal promotion The discipline leaders are so focused on desperately hiring as fast as possible, that they aren't nurturing their existing teams properly. If you are currently being wooed by Riot recruiters, enjoy it. It's possibly the last time you will feel like Riot really cares about your growth. There is no clear path to promotion, and it's rare to hear about them. We recently started a regular performance review program, but the reviews don't appear to have any relationship to compensation or title. Stagnant compensation If you join up you'd better darn well negotiate like a boss, because you're getting stuck with that salary for the long haul. Riot is so obsessed with hiring, that it is ignoring the stagnant compensation of it's existing teams. This a growing powder keg that few are talking about except in frustrated whispers, because leadership has made it clear that we should just do our work out of a passion for our players. It seems the managers below them have interpreted that literally to mean no one should talk about money. Ever. Sure, passion is our primary motivation, but passion only stretches so far when you never get cost of living adjustments or bonuses to prop up dead wages and the office is located in Santa Monica, one of the most expensive areas to live in So. Cal. Mixed messages.