Riot Games

Senior Manager, Creative Direction - Wild Rift

Riot Games$150K — $180K *
Media
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience leading large, multi-disciplinary creative teams in gaming.
  • 5+ years of experience managing and mentoring diverse teams in Game Art, Audio, Narrative, and UI-UX.
  • Trend awareness: ability to anticipate player behaviors and cultural shifts in gaming and entertainment.
  • Skill in transforming abstract concepts into actionable frameworks that improve team efficiency.
  • Expertise in stakeholder management, guiding discussions toward a unified vision while maintaining quality standards.
  • Experience in managing international IP, balancing different cultural perspectives and design needs.
  • Understanding of mobile platform constraints, creatively aligning technical limitations with visual designs.

Responsibilities

  • Define and maintain the creative vision for the product, ensuring alignment with product strategy.
  • Synthesize various disciplines including Art, Audio, Narrative, and UX for a cohesive player experience.
  • Align creative vision with technical and production needs while addressing constraints as opportunities.
  • Collaborate with global partners to maintain synchronized content and authenticity across markets.
  • Establish effective work systems that support fast-paced creative development while encouraging individual expression.
  • Lead and mentor the creative team, fostering collaboration and driving quality through a structured approach.

Benefits

  • Collaborative and innovative work environment with leading talents in the gaming industry.
  • Opportunity to shape the future of a major gaming brand on a global scale.
  • Access to professional development and creative resources.
  • Engagement in a diverse and inclusive culture that values creativity and collaboration.
  • Flexible working conditions to support employee well-being.
Full Job Description
As the Creative Director for Wild Rift, you are the primary architect and public steward of the game's creative soul. Your mission is to synthesize the outputs of Art, Audio, Narrative, and Visual Design into a singular, world-class voice that defines the League of Legends experience on mobile.

You are a visionary who bridges the gap between high-level brand aspiration and production reality. By aligning internal Riot teams, Publishing, and global partners like Tencent, you ensure that every player touchpoint-from the UIUX, core In-game and around-game experience to the latest cinematic-feels cohesive, immersive, and unmistakably Wild Rift. You don't just manage a team; you build the "North Star" frameworks that empower a multi-disciplinary apparatus to make fast, high-quality decisions at scale.
Responsibilities
  • Define the Creative Vision of the product and lead the team forward: Partner with the EP to ensure parity and consistency between Product Strategy and Creative Direction. Author "Creative Direction Artifacts" (Style Guide, Art Pillars, Craft Guidelines and Visual Design Systems) that serve as the North Star for the creative team and the source of truth for various stakeholders while boldly leading the way forward with vision and hands-on craft.
  • Discipline Integration: Synthesize Art, Audio, Narrative, and UX into a singular, world-class voice. You bridge the language & craft gap between craft specialists on your team and across all disciplines to ensure the team works in concert toward a unified player experience.
  • The Creative "Connective Tissue": Align the Creative vision with Tech, Production, and Publishing. You will contextualize technical or budgetary constraints (e.g., performance budgets on low-end devices) and transform them into creative opportunities that elevate the player experience.
  • Global Co-Creation: Ensure synchronized content and player experience starting with Wild Rift and across the greater League of Legends brand and the world-building of Runeterra. Partner with Tencent and regional leads to ensure hyper-local authenticity (maps, skins, events) while safeguarding Riot's global brand, always building conviction through player data while validating what works for global audiences.
  • Strategic mindset balanced with creative problem-solving: Understand how to uphold the strategic goals of the product while instituting effective work-systems and rituals that provide enough scaffolding for the team to move fast. Support the team in affording individual creative interpretation and craft excellence that sets a high quality bar for the game, while always being willing to step in and "shot-call" when needed for creative problem solving.
  • Comprehensive Leadership: You will be counted on as a key leader of the creative team, not only in terms of your ability to set direction and provide bespoke feedback, but also in your ability to collaborate and coordinate with other groups and leaders within Riot to shape the future of the League of Legends ecosystem. You have a track record of building scalable creative "playbooks" and rituals that align disparate disciplines on the game team, while driving collaboration with other Riot CDs to shape the future of the League of Legends ecosystem.
Required Qualifications
  • 10+ years of proven track record of leading massive, multi-disciplinary creative teams within gaming.
  • 5+ years of proven experience managing and mentoring diverse creative team members across Game Art (Concept, 3D, Tech-art, Animation, VFX), Audio, Narrative, and UI-UX as well as deep craft experience in at least one of these areas.
  • You have a "future-facing" pulse on culture (fashion, music, animation) and can anticipate player trends before they hit the mainstream.
  • The ability to translate abstract concepts into concrete "bumper-guardrails" and production frameworks that unlock team speed and quality.
  • Expert-level stakeholder management; you can nudge strong, divergent opinions toward a shared outcome while remaining firm on the "world-class" bar.
  • Experience navigating the nuances of international IP, specifically in balancing western design sensibilities with the needs of a global, multi-cultural player base.
  • A deep understanding of the constraints of mobile platforms and the ability to find the "creative throughline" between technical capabilities and aesthetic output.
Desired Qualifications
  • Genre affinity for games in the mobile free-to-play space, especially MOBAs.
  • Fluency in English and Mandarin
  • Professional experience establishing creative vision and strategy, including 1 shipped title as Creative Director or Art Director
  • Deep knowledge of the League of Legends IP
  • Background in design, narrative, or art

About Riot Games

Riot Games is a video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles, California. The company was founded in 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill, and is best known for its flagship game, League of Legends. The game has become one of the most popular esports titles in the world, with millions of players and fans around the globe. Riot Games is committed to creating high-quality, immersive gaming experiences that bring people together and foster a sense of community. The company is also dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion in the gaming industry, and has launched several initiatives to support underrepresented groups.
Learn more about Riot Games
Size
2,500 employees
Industry
Founded
2006

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