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@Riot UX and BigData employees

ploki122·4/3/2014, 6:00:39 PM·6 votes·1,783 views

This is a totally irrelevant post compared to others, but I'm at the point of my life where I need to commit to what I want to actually do. I understood a few years back that my field of study wouldn't always equate 1:1 with what job I land, but it terribly helps at leat with internships.

So I'm standing here, 3 semesters and 8 months of internship into my Bachelor degree in CS, and wondering if I made the right choice. In term of CS, I think that making tools and solving problems is what I likes the most. I'm constantly fiddling around in spreadsheets and Javascript to try and maximize my things in LoL and D3 alike (runes and monks are my latest attempts respectively).

What I would like to know is a few informations about your jobs and personalities, but pretty much the standard "what are you" questions. Also, I know that a few other jobs could apply to what I like (like Tech QA), but since I'm not 100% certain I want to/will land a gig in the gaming industry, I think that the former 2 are better reflected in other industries. Anyone that isn't a Rioter or doens't work on those exact spots are still welcomed to comment, obviously, if they think they can relate to me.

What's your job title (just to put a context on the other answers :P).
What background do you have (degrees/job experiences) and how did they apply in your case (aka how do you use them day to day).
What got you interested into that field of work, and what keeps you interested day to day (aka what did you expect coming in, and what do you like about your job).
Any tips on what to do/don't in that field of study/work?
Any way I can contact you further if interested in here/in-game/skype/reddit/whatever (/u/ploki122 astonishing ain't it?)

Basically, just a kind of greet&meet, but a few thousand kilometers apart...

5 Comments

Bob LLama4/3/2014, 10:56:30 PM4 votes

Howdy Ploki,

As the UX designer for the Community Beta, I can share with you some general pointers and a bit of my experience (NB: These are my opinions and mine alone):

What you study in school doesn't necessarily matter. If you're an MD then sure, but otherwise school is just a guided context in which to gain experience and hone talent. This can also very effectively be done not in school (I studied English, UX degrees didn't exist back then).
You're young. You could easily change careers once or twice (and likely will) before you settle down into one thing, and then change again. It's actually the norm these days. Don't worry too too much about coming out the gate with the "right" degree or internship or anything. Part of the beauty of being young is being able to try different stuff and learn what you like and don't like.
UX is awesome... if you like UX. I love people, I love problem-solving. I love design but don't consider myself a "designer" (in the traditional sense). I love technology but am not a developer. My job is to understand people, their needs and frustrations, and come up with solutions to those that work within the context of what we're doing. It's a complex and delicate balance of understanding everyone's needs (both on the player side and on the organization side) and finding the solutions that best meet the needs of all sides. It's one part diplomat, one part sociologist/psychologist, one part architect and one part engineer. UX is a frame of mind more than anything. Who's using this? Why? Is it meeting their needs? Am I sure?
Since technology is an ever-evolving thing right now, the job is always shifting. It's never boring, but it's also not very predictable. That's something I love about it, it keeps it fresh and interesting. I get to evolve with whatever I'm working on. But it can also be frustrating, confusing, disappointing and vague. It's not for everyone, but it works for me.
One of the big first lessons to learn in UX is that you're not designing for yourself. You can never rely solely on your own insight and experience. Lesson 1 is figure out who you're designing for and what they want/don't want, and what they need (not always the same thing).

Hope this helps you in some way, and feel free to ask follow-ups.

Yolodactyl4/4/2014, 3:10:47 AM2 votes

I'm not a Riot employee but I wanted to chime in a bit.

Who am I? My name is David and my title is Information Analyst II. It's a bit of a misleading title because I spend very little time actually analyzing information.

Background: No college. Decided I wanted to build Windows applications so I taught myself C#. Got my foot in the door at a blah entry-level job. Worked hard for a year and learned a ton. Applied to better places and landed an awesome job building web apps.

My Advice: As Bob LLama said, you're young and you have a lot of opportunity ahead of you. There's no real need for you to "commit" to what you want to actually do. Even if you settle on something you'll almost inevitably end up wanting a change. 7 years ago I'd have told you that I want nothing to do with web development. Today, a significant amount of my time is spent working on HTML and JS and I love it.

Go and just create things. You like building tools? Go out and build one, refine it, again, and again until you can be proud of what you've got. Then build something else.
Improve yourself constantly, that's the key to success in this career path. Learn new technologies, browse the top questions for tags on StackOverflow.com that interest you, find some quality dev blogs to peruse, etc.
Adapt quickly. One of the things I enjoy most about my job is how much it constantly changes. As soon as you finally grasp a new technology another one even better gets released or new your project uses something completely different. LLama nailed it. It's, more often than not, a roller-coaster of emotions.

I've observed that, for non-management positions, a lot of places often don't care as much about degree or experience as they do about how you think and adapt. They want someone who, when presented with a problem, can find a solid way to solve it even if it means learning something completely foreign. That said, there are jobs that will absolutely require you to know <insert language/technology here>.

Riotboourns4/5/2014, 2:11:20 AM2 votes

1: I'm a UX designer who's worked on the game (item shop, smartpings) and front end (notifications/invites and chat)

2: For me I initially went into computer systems engineering for university/college. I actually switched degrees after the first year to industrial design because I wanted something with more of a blend of technology and creativity. Looking back creativity is perhaps not the best way to describe the difference, because as a developer you solve a lot of problems creatively. However the big difference is that when you're learning that stuff it's a lot more deterministic what a good solution is in school (this is different than real life, of course). With industrial design the problem solving was much more people centric and open ended. You're also taught to think about a product or service more holistically. How do all the features fit together into a whole experience and how does it fit in with the environment and the user. In terms of applying that to UX I use all the skills I learned every day, it is the same mindset and process, just a specific medium.

3: UX allowed me to use some of the software development knowledge to supplement my industrial design skills. I get a lot of satisfaction from making the lives of players/users better, even it's just a little bit. At Riot I have the opportunity to positively impact the lives of so many players. We also have a much closer connection to our community than a lot of other studios. I also like games because it's much easier for players to vote with their time and money, your manager is not forcing you to play League for your job (except for pro players :P). Especially on a free to play live service. It means that the business is aligned with the values I hold as a UX designer (creating long term engagement).

4: My education did a pretty good job of training me as an industrial designer. However nothing beats doing real things in at real companies. I never really wanted to do my own thing, but that can work for you. Working/interning at a real company will help you get better at working on teams with others to deliver to actual people. You can't really teach that effectively at school. Your education basically starts after you graduate. You can get into UX without a related degree, but it will make it harder. The thing that I wish I could have figured out earlier is just how much company culture, leadership, and people matter. There are many good companies, but they all have different cultures. Find the one that fits you. If they're a good company that will also make it easier to get a job there because they will understand that your being aligned with their values and what they want to do is more valuable than specific skills that you can learn (you will still need some of those!).