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Come chat with Riot Interns! [COMPLETED]

RiotA Small Man·8/10/2015, 7:59:31 PM·32 votes·134,859 views

EDIT - Alright, back to work interns! We kid, of course, and the interns want to thank you guys for coming out to chat. Feel free to ask more questions in the official 2016 NA Summer Internship thread on LinkedIn.

Hey guys!

We’ve got a bunch of current Riot interns ready to talk about their experience this summer and answer any questions you may have about the NA internship program. They’ve worked in a variety of fields across Riot, so whatever your interests, ask away!

After the Q&A is over, we'll also be continuing the conversation at our official 2016 NA Summer Internship thread on LinkedIn.

Inahri - Visual Effects Hexadriven - Visual Development TweEeak - Riot Brand & Communications Riot Glyceroll - NA Publishing Blueberry Pie - Central Community Programs Riot CombatCube - Big Data Iniquus - Insights Lïghtnìng - eCommerce Riot Mijumaru - Research Riot A Mellon - Research Photronic - Software Engineering Riot Kyrrie - Software Engineering Riot Buzzelli - Software Engineering Riot Gentium - Software Engineering Riot DaGuava - Software Engineering

744 Comments

Gone 198/10/2015, 8:03:13 PM20 votes

These questions are for the software engineer interns. I'm being totally greedy here, so you don't have to answer all of them!

Could I get an introduction from you for some context? Name, year in school and major, office location, etc.
What software development methodologies does Riot adhere to (Agile, waterfall, etc)? Were you working on a team or were you largely quarantined from this process?
Did any of your code get pushed to a live environment or were your projects handled separately from the main source code? Either way, would you care to elaborate on any of them?
Is there anything Riot could improve upon with their internship program? Is there anything you wish you’d been able to do more of? More importantly, is Riot asking you these same questions as your summer internship draws to a close?
Could you walk me through a typical work day for you? How much time is spent in meetings, coding, free time, etc.

The next few questions involve workplace logistics, brutal honesty appreciated if that is allowed/safe for you to do so. Of all these questions I think these few are the most important:

What is the office environment like, such as dress code, attitude towards time off, and respect of work-life balance?
What were you being paid as an intern, and how much do the entry-level full-time employees make?
What are they making after a year of employment?
How much of an influence do corporate decisions have at the office scale (is it laid back or is it a more professional setting)?
How is the gender ratio at your location specifically?
Could you realistically go up to your boss (or your boss’s boss’s boss!) to have any concerns addressed, or is there a hierarchy of communication flow?

Thank you very much for your time.

itsme1808/10/2015, 8:02:37 PM17 votes

How many coffee runs though? I mean you're interns right?

RiotJeopardy8/10/2015, 8:05:52 PM8 votes

Who is the best Riven player at Riot?

J4G8/10/2015, 8:04:51 PM7 votes

As someone who is interested in becoming an intern at Riot, thanks for doing this AMA.

What was the application process like? Is there anything I can be doing to prepare myself and better my chances? What were your expectations for the work you'd be doing coming into this internship? Were those expectations met? How much freedom do you in choosing the work that you do? Was any of your work pushed to production?

Bendeavor8/10/2015, 8:41:15 PM6 votes

Greetings Riot Interns!

Thank you so much for doing this Q&A. I myself am a software development intern and would love to hear about your experiences working with Riot. I understand that you may not be able to answer all my questions so feel free to cherry pick. I apologize for the poor format, but I've tacked on follow up questions to kind of help guide what I'm trying to get at.

Could you describe your role and the responsibilities that come with it?

How are new ideas or opinions encouraged at Riot? Are suggestions normally implemented? Are employees empowered to make impactful decisions?

What is a normal working day like at Riot? I assume this varies per field, so I’m more interested in the Data Science/Engineering oriented schedule, but if the other fields don’t mind to chip in please do so. I’m sure everyone would like to know, myself included.

Part of the reason why you make a company fun, is to obviously keep the employees there and keep them working too. Can you describe to me your work life balance as an intern, and also those of the full-time employees? Tell me about the ‘crunch time’ pressure that releases/patches/events apply on employees and how are they compensated? How prevalent is burnout at Riot?

Is Riot’s long term plans communicated to the rest of the company? If yes, what are they? Has Riot analyzed how sustainable their competitive advantage is over time?

For Data Science/Engineering, can you describe the development environment (variation of agile development?)? Could you describe the state of the code base? What are the technology stacks used? Is development open migrating to different tools/technology? How much technical debt is there? What are the current major bottlenecks in the workflow? How is QA/testing done at Riot? How do software/development/data teams set deadlines, and what happens if (when?) it becomes clear they won't be met?

The tech industry veterans that I know describe game development as a very difficult to work in sector of tech. It’s like a movie, there’s an immense amount of resources that go into it, it could very easily flop, and it is very unforgiving. As having experienced what its like in a gaming company, care to comment on this observation? Thankfully for Riot, they’re doing pretty well, but still have felt that unforgivingness from the community. Does it create pressure? If yes, can you describe the nature of the pressure? Would you say it has a considerable effect on how decisions are made at Riot?

mistaxlol8/10/2015, 8:25:44 PM5 votes

blueberry pie is that you?

lolorraine8/10/2015, 8:45:05 PM5 votes

question for all interns: which champion do you hate the most?

Tommys Mom8/10/2015, 8:06:04 PM4 votes

This question is for every intern: Did you have to sell your soul then listen to Phreak make puns for 24 hours before you were even considered to be an intern?

HoodriiicH8/10/2015, 8:03:10 PM4 votes

How likely did you all think it would be to get the position? Did you have a lot of past experience and work to show (relative to the position/department/field) for the position you wanted? I ask because I feel that I would constantly worry about having inferior project experience and time spent programming, which would make me less qualified.....

Innerspeaker8/10/2015, 8:49:48 PM4 votes

I've been wanting to ask this question to as many people as possible and it's really important to me. Tacos or Burritos?

Entius8/10/2015, 9:47:24 PM3 votes

Which one do you hate more, Teemo laugh Teemo or Lux laugh Lux ?

oO Moonburst Oo8/10/2015, 8:48:47 PM3 votes

Do any of you get to write any of the lore for the champions? I think that's the more interesting part of the game is the lore itself. What about actually creating the idea of a new character itself?

ofc2000alex8/10/2015, 8:05:43 PM3 votes

How were you introduced to the program? Through a college program? A scholarship program? :)

Renggar8/10/2015, 8:27:00 PM2 votes

What are your favorite skins for Adc/marksman?

Logical Yasuo8/10/2015, 8:38:37 PM2 votes

Why is Glyceroll the best intern and better than Moobeat?

Tortugah8/10/2015, 8:35:43 PM1 votes

Are there any interns in bronze?

InflatableHammer8/10/2015, 8:24:40 PM1 votes

This is for all of the interns- Who is your favorite champion?