Playtest Operations Producer - Global Research Operations

As a Playtest Operations Producer on the Global Research Operations team, you'll embody a producer mindset – owning the outcome of each playtest, resolving unowned issues, and coordinating across lanes to remove blockers before they impact research. If ownership is unclear, you’ll take initiative to drive resolution until proper delegation is established. This role values proactive decision-making, structured coordination, and a bias toward accountability. You will also work across our portfolio of live and new products, supporting researchers by driving coordination and facilitation of playtesting labs and research studies, and ensuring that players have a voice in our products. You will interact directly with players by recruiting, screening, scheduling, and paying honorariums. In the playtest lab, you will help by checking players in, setting up, configuring playtest devices, and operating the recording equipment. Additionally, you’ll proactively identify and pursue new opportunities that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of user research operations. Through direct collaboration with playtesters and researchers, you will contribute significantly to enhancing Riot’s ability to listen to and serve players around the world. This role would be an excellent fit for someone interested in deepening their understanding of user research and research operations, while actively engaging in meaningful and practical contributions. You will report into the Manager of Game Production on the team.

Note: This is a hybrid role requiring on-site presence at the Los Angeles campus several days a week, with the potential for on-site evening and/or weekend work.

Responsibilities:

Serve as the primary producer for assigned playtests, ensuring operational execution, coordination, and accountability

Demonstrate a strong ownership mentality – coordinate across partners, anticipate risks, and resolve unowned blockers before they escalate

Recruit, screen, and engage players via email, phone, or vendor relationships for a variety of local and international research studies and playtests

Facilitate playtest labs effectively, operating and troubleshooting playtest lab equipment (PCs, mobile devices, recording equipment, networking, streaming) to ensure data is collected efficiently and effectively

Manage deployment of shared team resources across multiple research and playtest studies and improvement initiatives within the Global Research Operations team, while prioritizing lab schedules to maximize lab utilization across product and game teams

Identify and resolve potential issues or obstacles, and advocate for continuous process improvement of various inter-team and cross-functional workflows

Understand the bigger goals of the organization and translate how you and your team can contribute to achieving them through effective prioritization and alignment

Support the team by facilitating and participating in decision-making, removing roadblocks, managing distractions, and maintaining documentation for scope and processes

Autonomously work toward goals and lead yourself or a small team to complete straightforward projects and objectives, ensuring clear focus and execution

Drive forward progress on research, playtest, and project sprint commitments via work and capacity planning, estimations, velocity tracking, and proactive backlog refinement

Organize and run productive meetings; facilitate quality note-taking and ensure action items are driven to resolution

Work alongside researchers to ensure best practices are protected and integrated continuously into research, playtests, and improvement projects

Keep stakeholders consulted and informed on progress and bought into discussions as needed to ensure research and playtest success

Proactively identify and resolve simple conflicts between individuals to ensure smooth collaboration and alignment among stakeholders

Encourage collaboration between the team, researchers, developers, and other internal stakeholders and partners

Provide important research and playtest feedback and insight to the team, leadership, stakeholders, and partners

Champion best practices around sustainable research and playtest operations practices to cultivate and nurture team health

Required Qualifications:

2+ years of professional experience in a research operations or project management role

Working knowledge of computer lab or complex audio/video setups

Excellent written and verbal communication skill for technical and non-technical audiences

Ability to juggle multiple information streams in a fast-paced environment and communicate effectively across all mediums

Experience building roadmaps and schedules to track progress and delivery

Experience with various project management frameworks like Scrum and Agile

Experience with project management and productivity tools like Jira, Miro, and Notion

Desired Qualifications:

Experience in research operations

Experience with audience definitions, incidence rates, and recruitment principles

Experience with survey sampling and other quantitative market research or social science techniques

Experience with the Salesforce CRM platform and working with HTML email templates

Experience with IT support or help desk troubleshooting

Experience with audio and video editing

Bachelor’s degree in a related field

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, an…