Principal QA Engineer

Riot Games Sydney is looking for a Principal Quality Engineer to help transform how we approach quality across teams. Sydney partners with Riot teams globally and contributes across games and technology spaces including VALORANT, League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and broader R&D and tech initiatives. At Riot, quality is more than defect discovery. It is a set of values, practices, and behaviors that shape how we build, decide, and deliver for players. As a Principal Quality Engineer, you will own the quality approach for our teams or product spaces and operate as a senior craft leader with dev studio and business-unit level influence. This role will work closely with and adjacent to the Senior Leadership Team in Sydney, helping shape strategic quality direction across the organisation. You will help teams shift quality left through stronger test automation, better tooling, clearer standards, and practical quality strategies that improve both developer experience and player experience. You will also help teams maintain confidence in quality in a world of AI-assisted development, where new tooling and workflows are changing how software is designed, implemented, and validated. This is a full-time role, based in Sydney, Australia. Responsibilities: Own the quality approach for teams or product areas and ensure quality activities are considered across every stage of the software development lifecycle. Lead initiatives that shift quality left through automation, tooling, and process improvements that help engineers catch issues earlier and ship with more confidence. Identify, create, and evolve test frameworks and automation strategies that improve speed, coverage, sustainability, and reliability release over release. Help define and implement test approaches as part of an overall quality and test strategy. Help shape our approach to quality in an evolving AI landscape, including how teams use AI-assisted workflows responsibly and effectively while maintaining confidence in what we ship. Use metrics and reporting to surface quality risks, trends, and opportunities, then turn those insights into action with product and discipline leaders. Provide craft leadership and coaching for QA and partner disciplines, strengthening test design, planning, execution, and quality decision-making. Help define, adapt, and socialise quality standards and practices that are usable across multiple teams and scalable at product or business-unit level. Partner with engineering, delivery, design, creative, and production leaders to diagnose product and project quality risks and recommend targeted improvements. Contribute to growing the quality craft through hiring, mentorship, and cross-team leadership. Work in partnership with Game and Central teams to drive strategic initiatives. Required Qualifications: 8+ years of software quality assurance or quality engineering experience, with multiple proven product successes. Experience defining and implementing test approaches as part of an overall test strategy. Experience coaching QA team members on test design, planning, and execution. Experience driving continuous improvement processes within a team or organization. Experience leading or maturing automated testing frameworks, tools, or processes that improve sustainable development. Experience using quality metrics, telemetry, or reporting to assess quality health and influence decisions. Experience working effectively across disciplines and influencing teams beyond direct reporting lines. Experience handling multiple simultaneous projects and partners Experience tasking or partnering with remote teams and providing feedback on effectiveness. Experience establishing product or business-unit quality standards, practices, or operating models. History of leading strategic quality initiatives with broad organisational impact. Strong judgment in ambiguous problem spaces, with the ability to evaluate, scope, and execute solutions with team, initiative, or business-unit impact. Strong technical acumen, with the ability to engage deeply with engineers on systems, tooling, automation, and development workflows. The ability to adapt quality strategy to emerging development practices, including AI-assisted workflows and automation. Desired Qualifications: Experience in game development environments and supporting or shipping games. Development or quality experience across multiple platforms such as mobile, console, and PC. Familiarity with CI/CD maturity, release quality, and build or delivery workflows. Familiarity with Unreal and/or other game engines. Relevant certifications such as ISTQB Foundation, ISTQB Agile Tester, ISTQB Expert Level, ISTQB Advanced Test Manager, or ICAgile Test Expert. For this role, you’ll find success through: Deep quality craft expertise and a strong point of view on how to build quality into development, not inspect it in the end. Strong technical credibility with engineers and the ability to translate quality goals into practical technical solutions. The ability to make a meaningful impact on how teams work and on the quality of the end product at a business-unit level. A collaborative style that helps engineers and partner disciplines feel ownership of quality outcomes. Decision-making that consistently prioritizes better developer workflows and better player experiences. The ability to operate as a recognised craft expert across multiple dimensions of quality engineering. 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: At Riot we strongly believe in work / life balance, and we encourage that with our open paid time off policy, paid parental leave (for both primary and secondary carers) and flexible work schedules to fit your lifestyle. We also believe that work should be fun, we have co-op gaming areas, a play fund so you can broaden and deepen your knowledge of players and community, and all the snacks you would ever need to power through your day (even healthy snacks!). And that’s not all we offer, there’s also: Medical Insurance that covers you and your dependents Employee Assistance Program Wellness fund Donation matching of time and money to registered charities Learning and Development opportunities At Riot Games, we put players first. That mission drives every decision in our quest to create games and experiences that make it better to be a player. Whether you’re working directly on a new player-facing experience or you’re supporting the company as a whole, everyone at Riot is part of our mission. And just like in our games, we’re better when we work together. Our goal is to create collaborative teams where you are empowered to bring your unique perspective everyday. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to work, we’re looking forward to your application.