Manager, Concept Art - Unpublished R&D Product

Riot Games was established in 2006 by entrepreneurial gamers who believe that player-focused 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, millions of players log in 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.

In the Singapore Studio, you will serve as the Concept Art Lead for an unpublished R&D product. In this role, you will leverage your expertise in game development concept art to guide a team of artists in the creation of highly inspirational and informative art for characters, environments, and various assets, enabling our Art Team to execute effectively.

You’ll guide the exploration and execution of the Concept Art discipline across cosmetics content. Through your expertise, you’ll mentor and level-up the craft and game developer skills of your Concept Art team. You will work with the Associate Art Director to implement a style that fits within the art pillars and punctuates the game design.

Responsibilities:

• As a Concept Art Lead on the team, you will oversee and be accountable for the quality of the work the team delivers and set the bar for excellence. 
• Provide craft direction for your team.
• Own the full lifecycle management of your team members—from selection and onboarding through performance development, feedback, and exits where necessary—ensuring the right people and skills are in place to deliver at Riot’s quality bar.
• You will establish and maintain a highly engaged, creative, and motivated workspace for your team to unleash people’s potential.
• You will be responsible for driving innovative ideation and design aspirational concepts to set up other disciplines for success.
• Collaborate with the Associate Art Director, Product and Art Leads, Stakeholders, and Production teams in Singapore and Los Angeles to maintain consistency in workflow, and quality expectations.
• You will set a clear vision and strategy to grow your team, provide consistent feedback, and build trust with your team
• You will drive the concept development for 2D and 3D art products
• You will lead and improve team rituals to support high-quality craft and individual growth
• You will accomplish your mission with complete autonomy if needed; you're dedicated to vigilantly finding creative and effective solutions to eliminate complex problems.

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years experience in the video games industry
• 2+ years experience of management experience
• Demonstrated experience working directly with an outsource vendor either as an Art Outsource Manager or as a Concept Art Lead
• Extreme proficiency in art fundamentals such as anatomy, composition, design, and color theory
• Past leadership or management experience. Proven experience leading/mentoring teams and individuals. Growth minded and motivated toward teaching, enabling, and coaching other artists
• Experience giving thorough direction and delivering timely, clear, actionable feedback
• Strong background in concept art and a good understanding of technical limitations for 3D assets.
• A strong communicator and able to convey abstract/sophisticated ideas concisely in English, with the ability to communicate effectively in multilingual, cross-cultural treatments 

Desired Qualifications: 

• AAA Feature/Game experience 
• Experience giving direction and delivering clear, constructive feedback to vendors 
• Broad experience of collaborating with other art disciplines, working production end to end 
• Well-versed in Concept Art work for themed and cosmetic content across a variety of game titles, with the ability to form and articulate thoughtful creative insights. 
• Tools experience: have worked in several tools, pipelines, and game engines 
• Experience managing distributed teams across time zones and in remote work environments
• Mandarin fluency (verbal and written) is a strong plus