Manager, Application Engineering - ​​Atlassian Cloud Platform

As Manager, Atlassian Cloud Platform, you will lead the team responsible for the strategy, administration, governance, delivery, and operational health of Riot’s Atlassian Platform which currently includes Jira. You will manage a team of application engineers, administrators, solution architects, and/or analysts who partner with teams across Riot to build scalable systems of work, improve the Rioter experience, and enable better outcomes through thoughtful use of Atlassian technology.

Jira is a foundational enterprise capability for planning, delivering, and operating work across Riot. Jira supports and enables the majority of player-facing value streams at Riot.

This is a player/coach role where you will set direction and create the conditions for your team to deliver, while maintaining enough craft depth to guide platform architecture, configuration, automation, integrations, security, service management, and operational decisions. You will partner closely with Information Technology, Information Security, Enterprise, and teams across Riot to balance customer needs, platform standards, risk, capacity, and near-term business priorities.

For this role, success means building a healthy, high-performing team; delivering a dependable Jira platform; establishing clear and scalable governance; and providing a frictionless environment for our game teams and the teams that support them. Ultimately, you win when teams at Riot spend less time blocked and more time making great games for players.

Responsibilities:

• Manage and evolve a team of 2-5 application engineers; coaching them, providing performance management, identifying growth opportunities, and ensuring positive results
• Own the interviewing and onboarding process for new engineering team members
• Establish healthy team processes for intake, prioritization, discovery, solution design, delivery, change management, documentation, and support.
• Deliver platform capabilities and improvements against clear commitments, keeping stakeholders informed of progress, risks, dependencies, trade-offs, and changes in priority.
• Plan for keep-the-lights-on work, technical debt, platform maintenance, licensing needs, and other necessary technical investments alongside roadmap delivery.
• Facilitate alignment across teams when platform decisions affect multiple business units, Jira spaces, service portals, integrations, or governance domains.
• Build strong relationships with Atlassian and relevant vendors; manage vendor performance, escalations, and technical direction.
• Advocate for the team while ensuring decisions optimize for Riot and player value rather than for a single team or local preference.
• Be accountable for the team’s output and successful delivery against commitments.
• Promote contextual awareness of Riot’s company priorities, Information Technology strategy, Atlassian industry trends, and the needs of the teams that rely on Jira.
• Build healthy relationships with other engineering teams across Riot globally, in order to foster cross-team collaboration

Required Qualifications: 

• 2+ years of experience managing a team of technical individual contributors in an enterprise platform, SaaS administration, business systems, application engineering, or related environment.
• 6+ years experience working with Jira at enterprise scale where Jira is a business-critical platform, including environments with thousands of users, multiple sites, hundreds projects or spaces, substantial work-item volume, and complex configuration or integration needs.
• Experience operating a large SaaS platform with attention to reliability, security, access control, change management, support, and lifecycle management.
• Demonstrated ability to set goals, manage performance, provide direct feedback, coach talent, and address performance issues in a timely and respectful way.
• Experience hiring technical individual contributors and building a high-quality team through structured, objective assessment.
• Experience prioritizing a team backlog and roadmap based on customer outcomes, technical capability, team bandwidth, operational risk, and organizational priorities.
• Experience leading cross-functional technical initiatives involving multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to make complex platform decisions understandable to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work effectively in an ambiguous, changing environment while maintaining clear priorities and a high bar for execution.

Desired Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience, with multiple years in an application engineering role
• Experience with Jira Service Management, Assets, virtual agents, service portals, or configuration-management practices.
• Experience with Jira Product Discovery, Jira Advanced Planning, Automation, Atlassian Analytics, Atlassian Guard, Rovo, ScriptRunner, Structure, eazyBI, or comparable Atlassian Marketplace applications.
• Experience with Jira configuration-as-code, migration, environment promotion, configuration management, or tools such as Salto.
• Experience operating Confluence at enterprise scale, including information architecture, security architecture, governance, and integration with Jira or other business systems.
• Experience managing Atlassian licensing, vendor relationships, budgets, renewals, or commercial negotiations.
• Atlassian certifications such as ACP-120, ACP-420, or equivalent demonstrated expertise.

For this role, you'll find success through craft expertise, a collaborative spirit, and choices that focus on your fellow Rioters, who are the customers of your work. Being a dedicated fan of games is not necessary for this position!

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, and children, and a 401k with company match. Check out our benefits pages for more information.

At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.

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. We consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including the California Fair Chance Act, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and the Washington Fair Chance Act.

Per the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the following core duties may create a basis for disqualifying candidates with relevant criminal histories:

• Safeguarding confidential and sensitive Company data
• Communication with others, including Rioters and third parties such as vendors, and/or players, including minors
• Accessing Company assets, secure digital systems, and networks
• Ensuring a safe interactive environment for players and other Rioters

These duties are directly related to essential operations, safety, trust, and compliance obligations within our organization. Please note that job duties may evolve based on business needs and additional responsibilities may be assigned as necessary to maintain operational efficiency and security.