Associate Art Director - VALORANT, Characters (Agents)

Associate Art Directors at Riot oversee the quality and management of their team with a focus on mission, direction, and cohesion. Your scope of responsibilities include overall team culture and performance, growth of your direct reports, a deep understanding of audience resonance, building vision and strategy in collaboration with team leadership, and directing your team on successful execution of your team’s vision and strategy.

As an Associate Art Direction for Characters on VALORANT, you will own the art direction for Agents, ensuring their cohesion in style and quality supports VALORANT’s game-wide art direction. You will partner closely with Character team leadership to ensure your cross-discipline team delivers iconic, creative, and resonant Agents that amplify competitive gameplay for players. You will report into the Area Art Director.

Responsibilities:

• Work with product and design leads to create and drive an art strategy that clearly supports Characters product and design goals
• Lead , manage and mentor a high performing, healthy, and collaborative multi-discipline art team 
• Actively collaborate with Art Leadership across VALORANT to identify and execute on opportunities for cross-team collaboration and knowledge sharing
• Effectively manage stakeholders, like the Creative Director and Product Art Director, to ensure Characters art direction clearly supports game level creative and art goals
• Collaborate with partner teams, like Publishing, to unify character art expressions across media
• Produce and maintain artifacts that inform, align, and empower teams to successfully create character art in the VALORANT style

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years of industry experience
• 5+ years of professional experience leading character focused art teams in game development
• Has shipped characters for at least 1 First Person Shooter

Desired Qualifications:

• Professional experience establishing art vision and strategy
• Demonstrated experience managing art leads
• Deep knowledge of the VALORANT IP

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

Riot Games fosters a player and workplace experience that values teamwork embodied by the and . Our culture embraces differences as a strength, and our values are the guiding principles for how we approach work. We are committed to putting diversity and inclusion (D&I) at the center of everything we do, and promoting a fair and collaborative culture where Rioters treat one another with dignity and respect. We encourage you to read more about our value of and our ongoing work to build the .

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.