Senior Art Director - VALORANT

Art Directors at Riot drive the quality and performance of their team, establishing direction and goals that provide clarity and focus. Your scope of responsibilities include leading with vision, strategic partnership across the game, a deep understanding of audience resonance, overall team culture and performance, growth of your direct reports, and directing your team on successful execution of your vision and strategy.

As Senior Art Director on VALORANT, you will own the art direction for the entire game, ensuring cohesion in style and quality across all of VALORANT’s sub and partner teams. You will partner closely with the Creative Director and game leadership to ensure that visual executions serve iconic, creative, and resonant experiences that amplify the competitive experience for players. You will report to the Senior Creative Director.

Responsibilities:

• Steward VALORANT’s distinct visual style, continuing to evolve it to stay fresh whilst remaining rooted in its foundations
• Maintain strong attunement with the VALORANT player experience and global youth culture, ensuring that the visual identity of the game resonates with players 
• Lead a strong collaborative culture across the art org that prizes design thinking, player empathy, and collective quality over personal ownership
• Foster a world-class art org that inspires artists' passion & relentless curiosity in which they aspire to deliver the best work of their careers for millions of players around the world
• Serve as the art stakeholder for teams across the game, IP stakeholders and partner teams to ensure consistency of art expressions across game and media
• Partner with VALORANT’s game leadership team to help guide the strategic vision for the future growth of VALORANT, and be able to hold and drive a vision for how that manifests across art
• Work closely with Studio Creative on VALORANT visual development that expands the broader IP
• Produce and maintain artifacts that inform, align, and empower teams to successfully create in the VALORANT style and in accordance with our IP foundations

Required Qualifications: 

• 13+ years of experience in game development with 8+ years leading or directing art teams
• 5+ years in a senior leadership role on a shipped game or live service
• Experience as an Art Director or key artistic decision maker on at least one of the following: shipped games, live services, or R&D projects
• Demonstrable ability to lead creative work as part of a world-class entertainment IP
• Practitioner, mentor, and student of world-class creative design practices able to maintain the highest standards of professionalism and craft across the art org
• Skilled communicator with experience producing visual design briefs, style guides, running art reviews, and making presentations to the team and across the company
• Demonstrated deep understanding of player motivations and needs for the games they have worked on
• Knowledge of various art disciplines and artistic trends
• Demonstrated understanding of how to appeal to a global audience

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience Art Directing the work of scaled teams of 50+ artists
• Demonstrable experience in driving org culture and health
• Experience working within First Person Shooter genre and/or team based competitive games
• Deep knowledge of the VALORANT IP

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and decision-making that prioritizes the delight of players. We will be looking at your past studies, experience, and your personal relationship with games. If you embody player empathy and care about players' experiences, this could be your role!

 

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.