We know that applying for opportunities isn’t always easy, so we want to empower applicants by giving them all the resources they need to understand Riot, get a sense of what it means to be an intern here, and apply to join us. the next summer.
To get you started, we’re sharing some stories from former interns who are now full-time Rioters. When we answer questions from interns, they typically fall into one of three main categories: Community, Products, or Career Prep. This is how we break down our questions.
Community
Community, by nature, changes from person to person. So at Riot, we want to welcome you to the broader Riot community and also help you find other Rioters who are closely aligned with you and the things you love to do. That could be what you work on, like art or writing, it could be what you like to play, it could be shared cultural heritage, or it could just be good vibes.
“Community to me means finding a group of people that I feel like I belong to,” said Grace Yu, a 2019 intern who now works as a software engineer. “When I was an intern, I found a community with the other interns and my teammates. Everyone I met really cared about the games and the products they worked on. I grew up close to the other interns and am still good friends with some of them to this day.”
But community is deeper than meeting once a month. Community, at its core, means making sure all Rioters have a voice and feel comfortable coming to work every day.
“I was interviewing to be an intern when Kotaku’s article about gender discrimination at Riot came out in 2018,” Grace said. “The way the Rioters were honest with me about their experiences and how the company was determined to be better left a strong impression on me. I was able to get involved with the Riot Alliance of Diverse Genders, the Rioter Inclusion Group (RIG) of gender diversity. There I met a community of other women in the gaming industry who have supported and mentored me.”
Rioter Inclusion Groups, or RIGs, are groups of people who share a common identity and their allies. Right now there are seven. Asian and Pacific Islanders at Riot, Filipinos at Riot, Rainbow Rioters, Riot Alliance of Diverse Genders, Riot Noir, Riot Unidos, and Veterans at Riot. These communities are there for marginalized or underrepresented groups in the gaming industry to come together, share experiences, and enjoy each other’s company.
In addition to the RIGs, we also have communities of practice or CoPs. These are groups of people who work in different teams but in the same craft area like writing or design.
“My internship was completely remote, but I found a community with other VFX artists at Riot,” said José Estrada, an intern in 2020 who now works as a VFX artist on the LoL skin team full-time. “Other artists would teach me new techniques and provide valuable feedback on artistic and professional issues. I was the only person I knew at school who was interested in visual effects, so it was great to have a community of experienced artists to learn from.”
products
With the release of new games, interns are now spread across various gaming teams and core operations teams covering a variety of genres and roles. We will have interns working on VALORANT, League, TFT, Legends of Runeterra, Wild Rift, and even potentially unreleased products like Project L. There are also products that serve all of our games like Player Platform, Publishing, and many more.
“During my show, I learned the tools doing the visual effects for Coven Cassiopeia’s E, then I put them to work doing all the visual effects for Dragonmancer Karma,” Jose recalls. “I was so excited for Karma because my own VFX work, with a cool theme on an iconic character, would be a permanent part of such an old game. After the internship, the things I learned at Riot helped me create personal projects that remain some of my favorite pieces of art I’ve ever done.”
