Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Animation

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused game development can result in great games. In 2009, Riot released its debut title League of Legends to critical and player acclaim. As the most played PC game in the world, over 100 million play every month. Players form the foundation of our community and it’s for them that we continue to evolve and improve the League of Legends experience.

We’re looking for humble but ambitious, razor-sharp professionals who can teach us a thing or two. We promise to return the favor. Like us, you take play seriously; you’re passionate about games. We embrace those who see things differently, aren’t afraid to experiment, and who have a healthy disregard for constraints.

That's where you come in.

Riot’s Singapore Efficiency team builds the technology that lets our creative teams do their best work. Animation carries some of the most time-consuming technical work in the studio, including retargeting, cleanup, foot-locking, and rig wrangling, and this role is about taking that load off animators so they can spend more time on performance and expression. You will be reporting to the Sr Manager, Machine Learning Engineer.

As a Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Animation, you’ll design and ship ML tools that accelerate the technical scaffolding around animation, from motion processing to rig-related workflows, and integrate them into the way animators already work.

Responsibilities:

• Build assistive animation tooling, drawing on motion synthesis, motion matching/blending, retargeting, and physics-based character control, to remove mechanical steps from the animator’s workflow.
• Partner with animators and tech artists to target costly keyframing, cleanup, and retargeting work and ship tooling that shortens it.
• Define and run evaluations for motion quality (naturalness, foot-sliding, responsiveness) and quantify the time returned to animators.
• Follow developments in motion generation and character control and judge what holds up on production rigs and within runtime budgets.

Required Qualifications:

• Master’s or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related field, with a focus on Machine Learning, Data Science, or Artificial Intelligence.
• Animation specialization: Deep, proven expertise in motion and character-animation ML, covering motion synthesis, motion matching, retargeting, physics-based control, and reinforcement learning for character control.
• At least 5 years of experience applying Machine Learning to real-world problems, with a demonstrated record of delivering impactful, end-to-end ML solutions in Animation in a fast-paced environment.
• Evidence of working on state-of-the-art approaches, demonstrated through peer-reviewed publications (e.g. SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH Asia, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR) and/or shipped projects, open-source contributions, or production systems in Animation that pushed the technical frontier.
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, C, C++, or C#, and strong hands-on experience with frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX.
• Strong understanding of statistical analysis, experimental design, and evaluation techniques.
• Deep, hands-on experience with Generative Models, including motion diffusion and flow matching models, VAEs, and autoregressive/transformer motion models, applied to building artist-assistive tools and accelerating technical steps in the animation pipeline.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Leadership experience, including mentoring junior team members and interns and driving cross-functional collaboration, is highly desirable.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience working in the gaming industry or a related field is a plus.

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:

• Full relocation support
• Full health insurance for you, your spouse and children
• Open paid time off
• Retirement benefits with company matching
• Life insurance, parental leave, plus short-term and long-term disability
• Play Fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of our players and community through games
• We will double down on your donations of time and money to non-profits

- Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related field with ML focus. - Deep expertise in motion and character-animation ML (synthesis, matching, retargeting, physics-based control, reinforcement learning). - 5+ years applying Machine Learning to real-world animation problems, delivering end-to-end solutions. - Evidence of state-of-the-art approaches (peer-reviewed publications, shipped projects, open-source contributions). - Proficiency in Python, C, C++, or C#; strong hands-on experience with PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX. - Strong understanding of statistical analysis, experimental design, and evaluation techniques. - Deep, hands-on experience with Generative Models (motion diffusion, flow matching, VAEs, autoregressive/transformer motion models) for artist-assistive tools. - Excellent communication skills. - Desirable: Leadership experience including mentoring and driving cross-functional collaboration.