tl;dr: The process was an epic 10 weeks of intense awesomeness with brief periods of no communication. I had 5 phone screens with 6 people before an onsite that consisted 7 interviews with 11 people. I had a final interview with the President after which an offer was made, quickly negotiated, and ultimately accepted.
Process: A recruiter at Riot contacted me on LinkedIn, and I knew immediately this was going to be a unique experience within my search process. He was one of the few recruiters on LinkedIn that paid attention to my full resume and the types of opportunities that I was interested in pursuing.
I was concerned that while I am hardcore gamer, I had not (at that time) played any LoL. The recruiter indicated that a familiarity with LoL was not a pre-requisite to consideration. They want to know that you play games and can empathize with other players.
(Two weeks) after the phone screen, I had a cultural fit interview. The interviewer spent over an hour-and-a-half with me, and at the end he helped me to narrow down whether I should pursue Engineering or Production (both, at first, was decided). He -- more than anyone else in any interview process in my career -- made a significant and tangible effort to work with me to find the right fit within Riot.
The technical evaluation was scheduled on the same day as my Production interview (a week later). It was a deep dive into my technical leadership and experience, and my Production interview made it clear that while I didn't have any game production experience, I had an aptitude for the role. I was then recommended for an onsite for a Production role.
Before the onsite, I had one more phone interview (a week later) with an Executive Producer. He indicated I was "pretty green" and that while they were going to recommend having me onsite, they had fairly low expectations for the type of role that they would be able to offer me as compared to my current management role and compensation.
I accepted the feedback and onsite anyway, and I am glad that I did because (three weeks later) I found an agenda that had me interviewing with leaders from both the Development and Product Manager disciplines. Riot has a leadership gap due to explosive growth and based on my leadership experience decided to evaluate me for a leadership position!
The ability to take feedback is critical at Riot, and the first interviewer opened with "We need to see you be less verbose today." I immediately accepted it and made sure to ask each interviewer throughout the day how I was doing with regard to verbosity and what I could do to improve in general.
The on-site was a whirlwind of interviews (7 interviews with 11 interviewers). It was bar-raising for me across a number of pivots -- the facility is outstanding, the people are awesome, and the perks (free food in the kitchens, free lunch, flex hours, unlimited vacation, daily playtests with LoL, etc.) are competitive within the industry in general. Riot's studio felt vibrant, alive, and bursting with creative energy. The interviews were really fun, and I remained authentic to who I am and didn't deviate to try to be who I thought they wanted me to be.
I then had one more phone interview a week later with the President of Riot. It was the most challenging interview of all as I was asked broadly scoped situational questions. I feel like I leveled-up after this conversation, and -- two weeks later -- I (finally) received an offer.
Offer: I was offered an "opportunity hire" role as a Product Manager as I was not being hired to fill a specific opening. The offer was below my current compensation in an Engineering role and other top tier software companies (from a signing bonus and equity perspective), but given the risk on both sides regarding my lack of experience in a Production role and the incredible willingness of Riot to hire me based on aptitude over experience for such a role, it was a fair offer.
Feedback: The amount of time it took (10 weeks) lags behind the rest of the software industry, and the (sometimes) weeks without responses to direct questions from the people I was told to coordinate with was a bit disappointing. A simple improvement would be to immediately acknowledge receipt of questions and then go off in search of the answers.
Conclusion: Riot knows exactly what it is looking for, and its process is tuned to find that out no matter how long it takes. Rioters are brilliant people at the top of their profession working together to build some of the most creative game content in the history of gaming, and that showed through in all interactions. I was treated with respect, I was challenged continuously, and I left the experience feeling like I had discovered something within myself that can only be described as next level. I am extremely humbled to be the newest addition to such a unique and talented company. RIOT!!!!!!!
