Riot Games reviews

Do you like corporate spin? Welcome aboard, bro! Do you like dealing with people who can never give you a straight answer about why a terrible decision is being made in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is going to be a disaster? Do you like working for people who know less about your craft than you do but are in charge for unexplainable reasons? You'll get to experience managers or dev leads who are super at making convincing, Riot-buzzword-laden PowerPoints but have no practical experience in the departments they run. Do you like having the Riot Manifesto used as a weapon to shut down dissenting opinions? Managers will block real questions about a bad decisions being made with “Well this is what the players want and if you’re so misaligned then maybe you shouldn’t be here.” When their terrible decisions blow up and harm things they'll just shrug and say, “I guess that wasn’t the right call after all.” Zero consequences. Put that on repeat. Do you like getting reasonable, semi-regular raises? Sorry! Getting a raise is tied to the fear your managers have of pushing for and having to justify it to the same department heads that make all the bad decisions. Riot’s “meritocracy” feels like a way to say “If you stay in the same job you will NEVER get a raise.” Sorry, if you just like doing your job. That’s not enough. Oh, you’re doing more? Sorry, your manager didn’t want to fight for it. You aren't likely to get a raise unless you have a title change. This may work for some departments/roles but it makes no sense to use it across the board. Like being kept in the loop? Sorry! Riot's inability to communicate internally and get departments to work together is legendary. Want to duplicate work other teams are already doing? You're in the right place! Want to move from one department at Riot to another (aka Lane Swap)? Good luck! Unless you're a super-ultra-alpha-achiever this is a one-way trip out of the company. I have witnessed people get permission to seek other opportunities in the company from their managers only to have those same managers torpedo their chances in these other departments for political/personal reasons. Even if you do get permission to move, this process will take a minimum of 6 months to a year to actually happen.

Disorganization is rampant so lots of time and resources are wasted. Often completely separate teams end up working on the same project because neither knew about the other. Likewise, projects and research that have already been done tend to get done over and over because the information is not disseminated appropriately. Major projects tend to get spun up rapidly and dropped just as fast because of this disorganization, so a majority of the really big and cool things people work on here never get completed and see the light of day. Leadership is often inexperienced and ineffective. Most senior leaders surround themselves with yes-men only and challenging the wrong leader can effectively end your career at Riot. Subordinates often end up getting scapegoated for poor leadership decisions while the leaders themselves get off scot-free. Leadership also tends to claim that we have the "secret sauce" but no real idea what it actually is, which leads to sitting around twiddling our thumbs. Can be a hostile workplace. People who come forward with complaints or stories about discrimination tend to get brushed off as "poor culture fits" or "not core gamers" (including by senior leadership). Casual sexism, racism and transphobia is pretty rampant here.