Riot Games

• Great benefits
• Flexible work hours
• Great culture
• Values individual contributions
• Open-door policy
• Usually very little in the way of "office politics"
• Playing League of Legends is almost a job requirement
• Lots of extracurricular activities
• Over 800 people, and we still feel like a family (a really large family)
• Great positive energy around the office where people come to work because they want to, not because they need to.
• Challenging/exciting problems to solve
• Dedicated to helping their "Rioters" grow through effective mentoring
• Competitive salaries
• Playing video games at work, and it is actually part of your job. Need I say more :)

Cost of Living: Santa Monica is beautiful, but it is not cheap. While I chose to move here after my first year, the first year I lived for about 35% less over by LAX in Westchester, giving me about a 20-min commute. Downtown Culver City or the Palms are also great options if you STILL want to be close to "things to do" without paying high rents. But if you don't mind a roommate or two, Santa Monica is a great place to live.

Work / Life Balance: As the company has had explosive growth, sometimes people feel as though it is difficult to maintain work / life balance. Sometimes people complain about "mandatory events", but even our mandatory events have always been optional and usually come with a cool reward. For example, after our last "mandatory" event, we got to see The Dark Knight Rises a day before general release for free... pretty awesome if I DO say so myself ;).

The people that tend to feel this way, in reality though, are those people who do not raise visibility that they feel inundated with work. How do I know? I used to be one of them :).

As you grow at Riot, your manager WILL give you more responsibility. However, he or she will ALSO be very receptive to your needs. If you say that your workload is getting too high, managers are always willing to help and find additional resources to assist. I feel like a lot of people give Riot harsh reviews because this is their first job in the industry and don't know what to expect or don't know how to say no. Trust me...I worked at startups where the norm was > 90 hours / week.

At Riot, I manage to still be a top performer and I honestly only work 50 hours on average per week. Granted... that's not 9-5, but it isn't a sweatshop either as some people have said. I would say about 2 days / month, I am at the office late because of a deploy or because there may be that occasional live issue.

If you currently work here and you have done all of the above and STILL feel inundated... consider reading "On Managing Yourself" from the Harvard Business Review. It worked wonders for me ;).

Communication: As the company has grown and new departments have formed, effective communication to ALL relevant parties has become more of a challenge. I joined when we had about 150 Rioters and it was much easier to keep everyone in the loop. Usually, a quick chat with your manager can give you a clue as to who you should be including in your communication with other departments.

Sometimes with regional offices around the world, you can feel the slightest tinge of a game of "telephone" where a message gets lost in translation. This IS something we have been working to improve though. Having worked with our international offices and almost every department @ Riot, I do feel this more than some people. I've found that it comes down to deciding in advance what is the most effective form of communication for the audience. Sometimes a meeting is the most effective, sometimes a PowerPoint, sometimes an email. Sometimes it is a mixture of all three :).

On-boarding / Training: Again... as we grew explosively, we are just NOW getting around to putting together many of our training programs. When I started about 2 years ago, it was very much a "throw you in the deep end with cement shoes on" mentality. People would be around if you started to "drown", but you usually were expected to grow organically by asking the right questions.

Now that we're getting bigger, we have gotten more effective at on-boarding new Rioters in their respective departments and also in understanding our core values. Our mentoring structure has improved dramatically and on-boarding programs have become quite effective. We still have a ways to go... but we're definitely on the right track.

Tech Debt: As with any company that grew at our rate, we have a decent amount of tech debt that we are now working through. We're getting better and our automated test coverage is constantly increasing, but we still have a long way to go.

If you do join, I guarantee there will be at least one code base you despise working in, BUT... the great part? If you really don't like it, I guarantee you can find a team willing to take the time to rewrite it with you. Over the past two years, I've seen us steadily start paying back our technical debt that accrued during startup stages and the "despised code bases" are definitely on a decline.

Not for Everyone: If you are used to a top-down organization or you don't like games, you probably won't enjoy Riot. We are hard-core gamers and we lead bottom-up. You'll probably flounder if you don't embrace that ideal or don't enjoy games.

Trust me... the pros far outweigh the cons :).

Keep doing what you're doing (for the most part).

We have a great company, and as long as we continue to hold true to our values, avoid diluting Riot Culture, and keep making "awesomez," we'll continue to thrive for years to come!

I've noticed over the past year, around the time we hit 500+ people, that there has been an ever-so-slight tinge of politics. I know we avoid it like the plague, but it does creep up now and then.

Overall though: Considering I worked at 17-employee companies with MORE politics than we have with ~800, I would say we're doing pretty well ;).