Director, Research Science - Tech Research

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end organizational effectiveness across Tech Research, including performance management, leveling, compensation calibration, and career development across multiple technical craft ladders
• Define and execute headcount planning and staffing strategy in partnership with Research and Technology leadership, aligning talent to long-term research ambitions and roadmap priorities
• Translate research goals and backlog into clear capacity and capability plans, making disciplined staffing decisions across pillars and technical disciplines
• Maintain a high bar for talent density, ensuring researchers and engineers consistently operate at Riot’s expected level of craft and impact
• Lead hiring, onboarding, development, and when necessary, performance management and exits with clarity and consistency
• Identify capability gaps and proactively build plans to address them through hiring, development, or structural changes
• Build scalable mentorship systems and strengthen team health, engagement, and sustainability across the organization
• Evolve technical career ladders to support both research innovation and the engineering rigor required to operationalize that work
• Resolve interpersonal and cross-disciplinary conflicts with clarity, fairness, and strong judgment
• Foster a culture of intellectual rigor, constructive debate, and accountability
• Reinforce a high technical bar through structured feedback, calibration, and performance systems
• Build an environment where ambitious, exploratory research and hands-on engineering coexist productively
• Partner with the Head of Research on organizational strategy and long-term planning
• Provide input into research prioritization discussions, ensuring organizational capacity aligns with technical ambition
• Partner with the Head of Research to define what 'Impact' looks like in a research context, ensuring performance systems reward both successful prototypes and valuable 'fast-failures'
• Surface talent risks, organizational friction, and scaling challenges early
• Ensure the research organization is structured to execute against evolving research bets
• Cross-Organizational Leadership
• Represent Tech Research as the organizational leader of the function within broader Technology leadership forums
• Collaborate with central Talent, HR, and compensation partners to ensure rigorous calibration and leveling practices
• Collaborate with peer leaders across Riot to ensure Research is well-integrated and positioned for long-term impact
• Contribute to broader AI capability planning across Technology

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in research, engineering, or technical organizations
• 4+ years managing senior technical ICs across multiple disciplines
• Experience leading AI/ML or frontier research organizations
• Demonstrated success leading performance management, compensation calibration, and leveling across different craft ladder
• Proven track record hiring and developing senior researchers and engineers
• Experience scaling or evolving a technical organization while maintaining a high quality bar
• Strong judgment in resolving conflict and navigating high-ambiguity environments
• Excellent communication skills across technical and executive audiences