devtrackers.gg
This is really cool that riot lets you use their resources to better hone your skills. As a QA analyst were you familiar with scripting prior, or are you learning as you go? What do you see yourself doing with the info you learn from this project?
This is really cool that riot lets you use their resources to better hone your skills. As a QA analyst were you familiar with scripting prior, or are you learning as you go? What do you see yourself doing with the info you learn from this project?
I already had some experience scripting from my past career/grad school (structural engineer!) and so I mostly understand the concepts just have to relearn how to apply them. A lot of what I've learned is self taught, but I have had a lot of mentoring/help from the designers here. :)
There's a number of things I'm trying to get out of this project, but most relevant to what I do: By improving my understanding of how we make champions and whatnot, I believe I'll be able to better triage/investigate bugs, potentially be able to fix some of them myself, better understand the riskiness of something we're making (how likely it will cause something to break for example), etc.
How did you become a Q/A anaylst at riot? What was your path to get there?
A while back I was living in Boston working on my doctorate degree in structural engineering. I had been living there for a few months and didn't have many friends because a lot of the graduate students I was working with were a lot older than me. Wound up going to a World's viewing party at a local bar to try and make some friends.
There, I met some Rioters that were in town recruiting interns and visiting the local universities. I befriended RiotAugust there and we kept in touch. He came back to visit a couple of times and eventually he encouraged me to apply to the Playtest team.
I decided to go for it, despite being in the middle of grad school, and actually got rejected after my second phone interview. It was a bit disheartening, but I loved what I was doing so I was mostly alright with it.
At some point, I finished my Master's degree and got a nice job offer back in my home state so I stopped pursuing the doctorate and moved back home with my Master's to start working as an actual structural engineer.
One day, I received a text from August encouraging me to reapply to Riot. I wasn't really digging my current job - it was a long, tiring commute and the work I was doing wasn't the work I was passionate about (my graduate work was related to constructing wind turbine towers which was not what I was doing at work) so I decided I'd try again after a bit of studying. I began listening to video game podcasts on my commute to work and tried my best to absorb the feedback Riot gave me when they rejected me (need to brush up on game design knowledge mostly). When I was ready, I began the process all over again and, this time, made it to the end of the gauntlet! Ultimately, I wound up taking the position.
After about a year on the Playtest team, I was given the opportunity to join what is now the Modes team. I helped ship Nexus Blitz, spending most of the time learning how things work on an actual dev team. Then I transitioned over to the Summoner's Rift team (what everyone knows as the balance team). Joining Riot was probably the best choice I've made in terms of doing something that brings me happiness. I truly love what I do - I look forward to coming into work every single day. This is my "rockstar" job. Super thankful and grateful to everybody who's helped me along the way and especially to RiotAugust for giving me the encouragement to try again after I missed the shot the first time.