Senior Technical Sound Designer

Job Description

The Audio Team at Riot strives to deliver lasting sonic experiences for players. We help breathe life into our games, cinematics, esports, albums, and more through the use of sound. We also are always working to level up the team & techniques by experimenting and playing the games we love. As a Sound Designer, your technical and creative audio skills will combine to bring life to the broad range of characters and experiences in our games. Joining efforts with a multidisciplinary team, you'll help drive projects from their inception. Using your passion, creativity, and critical thinking you will help guide team decisions and provide valuable feedback to your peers. As a member of the audio discipline, you'll strive to find ways to teach and level up those around you while continuing to challenge and grow yourself.

As a Senior Technical Sound Designer in R&D, you will focus on defining and building the tools and tech that get our Audio assets into the game efficiently. This will involve working with the Audio Lead to identify opportunities to improve pipelines and workflows for DCC (Digital Content Creation), collaborating with engineering in the design of our in-house tools, the creation of tools across RnD for better Audio efficiency, and consulting with audio to discover the best possible solutions to the challenges we face. In this role, you will report to a Lead Sound Designer.

Responsibilities
• Work along-side audio programmers and sound designers to develop the framework of audio playback systems based on creative vision and game-play needs
• Define and apply best practices of technical audio workflows and systems to support project and team needs.
• Act as a liaison to advocate for audio to the engineering staff, and partner with team members across disciplines to find solutions that best support quality audio.
• Implement in-game audio assets including sound effects, voice over and music. .
• Optimize and refine current audio pipelines across R&D games.
• Identify, create, grow and troubleshoot audio tools, features, and functionality.
• Provide technical support for audio discipline members across R&D games.
• Optimize memory budgets, streaming look-ahead times, and other technical aspects.
• Setup new pipelines including Perforce Repos and Wwise projects
• Manage Wwise project organization, structures, gameplay parameter setups and optimizations
• Scripting creative solutions to audio problems using C# in Unity, Blueprints in Unreal, etc.
• Support the team's approach toward mixing through use of middleware and engine feature sets.

Required Qualifications:
• 5+ years of experience in Audio in the games industry with at least 3 years in a technical sound designer or equivalent role.
• 2+ years experience scripting in C# and C++
• 3+ years experience using Unreal Engine, Unity, or relevant game engine.
• Exceptional Wwise or Fmod implementation skills.
• Proficient with Perforce

Desired Qualifications:
• Experience with visual scripting languages such as Blueprint, Kismet, Max/MSP, etc. a plus.
• Experience UnrealScript
• Proficient with modern day audio software tools (Pro-Tools, Reaper, Plugins)
• Ability to handle multiple tasks/projects simultaneously. 
• Understanding the technical audio constraints regarding audio implementation of current console platforms & PC to accurately predict task duration and understand dependencies

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 the experiences of players, this could be the role for you!
Our Perks:

We offer medical, dental, and vision plans that cover you, your spouse/domestic partner, and children. Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability coverage are also available. Riot will support your retirement benefits with a company match, and double down on your donations of time and money to non-profit charitable organizations. Balance between work and personal life is encouraged with open paid time off, and a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your personal relationship with games.

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, including the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance relating to an applicant's criminal history (LAMC 189.00).

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-gw8mz2-18-217-194-39-42 in your application.