Software Engineer, Distributed Systems

Discord

Discord has a highly engaged community of millions of daily active users who use the platform for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does: play video games. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming, and we are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to hang out before, during, and after playing games. Every day, hundreds of millions of gamers gather on Discord to hang out, strategize their next raid, celebrate tournament victories, and build communities around the games they love. Behind every voice channel, every streamer Go Live, every Quest completed, there's data, petabytes of it, telling the story of how people connect through gaming. We're looking for someone who gets excited about building data infrastructure at massive scale and cares deeply about the gaming communities we serve. Someone with passion for building lovable products for Discord users and Discord engineers. We’re building the next generation Data Platform that powers decisions for one of the most vibrant platforms in the world. If you're the kind of Software Engineer who lights up when talking about distributed systems, cares deeply about user privacy, grounding decisions in data, and wants your work to directly impact millions of gamers worldwide, we want to talk to you. To learn more about Discord’s Data Platform, read our engineering blog, including how we built our modern data stack leveraging open-source tools! What You'll Be Doing * Build and maintain data infrastructure processing petabytes of data across millions of users * Write clean, well-tested code for data ingestion, transformation, and serving systems * Own projects end-to-end with guidance from senior engineers. From design through deployment and production support * Collaborate with data scientists, engineers, and product teams to deliver solutions that power Discord's insights What You Should Have * 3+ years of software engineering experience with strong programming skills in Python, Java, Rust, Go, or similar * Solid CS fundamentals and demonstrated ability to quickly learn new technologies and ramp up on unfamiliar systems * Proven debugging skills and growth mindset. You seek feedback and continuously improve * Strong collaboration skills and ability to clearly explain technical concepts to different audiences Bonus Points * Passion for Discord and gaming * Experience with the data ecosystem: pipelines, ETL, modeling, or warehousing (Kafka, Spark, Flink, Airflow, Dagster, SQL, etc.) * Cloud infrastructure knowledge (AWS, GCP, Azure) or containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties). Relocation assistance may be available. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $160,000 to $200,000 + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role and level. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits. Why Discord?  Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We're a multiplatform, multigenerational and multiplayer platform that helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests, and helps developers build and grow their businesses. We believe games give us a way to have fun with our favorite people, whether listening to music together or grinding in competitive matches for diamond rank. Join us in our mission! Your future is just a click away! Discord is committed to inclusion and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. We want you to feel set up for success, so if you are in need of reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know. Please see our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy for details regarding Discord’s collection and usage of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking HERE.

Discord

Discord has a highly engaged community of millions of daily active users who use the platform for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does: play video games. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming, and we are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to hang out before, during, and after playing games. Discord only works at our scale if people feel safe showing up — and building the systems that make that possible is exactly what our Safety engineering org does. We classify content, route reports, make and audit enforcement decisions, and build the tools our operations partners use to handle everything automation doesn't. The work is a mix of deep backend infrastructure, AI-driven automation, and tight collaboration with the people who do nuanced review. As Discord grows into new surfaces like commerce and ads, the platform we build matters more. We're hiring a Director of Engineering to lead Safety Infrastructure Engineering at Discord. The org is roughly 20 engineers across two teams with two EM direct reports. You'll report to the senior Director of Safety and work closely with T&S Operations, Safety ML, Safety Product, Legal, Policy, Security, and Core Tech. What you'll do * Lead and grow two engineering teams covering our safety backend: the decision platform, classification systems, content understanding, intake and routing pipelines, and observability * Drive the automation roadmap with Safety ML. Decide where AI belongs in the loop, where humans still win, and hold the line on quality, latency, and cost * Own the queue routing and internal tooling our ops teams and vendor partners rely on, and partner with T&S Operations on golden sets, QA, appeals, and evals that turn operational signal into better systems * Consolidate fragmented systems onto infra and set the bar for engineering quality: on-call, incident response, technical review, and ownership * Hire, coach, and grow senior leaders Who you are * 5+ years as a software engineer with a strong backend and distributed systems background, and 5+ years as an EM including 2+ years managing managers. Experience running 20+ engineers through multiple EMs * Strong infrastructure instincts. You can hold your own in architecture discussions on event-driven systems, service migrations, and platform design * Fluent in AI and ML systems enough to partner credibly with an ML org and make good calls about where automation belongs in a decision pipeline * Experienced working closely with ops or human-in-the-loop teams. You get the rhythm of QA, calibration, appeals, and ground-truth work, and build tools that respect the people using them * Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills, with a history of partnering effectively across engineering, ML, data science, policy, legal, and product teams. * Practical about throughput, vendor management, and unit economics * An empathetic and experienced recruiter and coach. People you've managed want to work with you again Bonus * A strong passion for Discord and/or gaming, and an appreciation for the communities we serve. * Trust & Safety, fraud, integrity, or abuse engineering at a consumer platform * Building ML platforms, MLOps, or automated decisioning at scale * Managing vendor-based ops (BPO, content review, third-party tools), or building internal tools where ops or review teams are the primary user * Payments, fraud, or commerce infra   Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties). Relocation assistance may be available. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $400,000 to $450,000 + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role and level. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits. Why Discord?  Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We're a multiplatform, multigenerational and multiplayer platform that helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests, and helps developers build and grow their businesses. We believe games give us a way to have fun with our favorite people, whether listening to music together or grinding in competitive matches for diamond rank. Join us in our mission! Your future is just a click away! Discord is committed to inclusion and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. We want you to feel set up for success, so if you are in need of reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know. Please see our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy for details regarding Discord’s collection and usage of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking HERE.

Discord

Discord has a highly engaged community of millions of daily active users who use the platform for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does: play video games. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming, and we are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to hang out before, during, and after playing games. Every day, hundreds of millions of gamers gather on Discord to hang out, strategize their next raid, celebrate tournament victories, and build communities around the games they love. Behind every voice channel, every streamer Go Live, every Quest completed, there's data, petabytes of it, telling the story of how people connect through gaming. We're looking for an Engineering Manager who gets excited about building world-class teams and data infrastructure at massive scale. Someone who cares deeply about the communities we serve and is passionate about developing engineers who build lovable products for Discord users and Discord engineers alike. You'll lead a team building the next generation Data Platform that powers decisions for one of the most vibrant platforms in the world. If you're the kind of leader who lights up when coaching engineers, making tough technical decisions, and wants your team's work to directly impact millions worldwide, we want to talk to you. To learn more about Discord's Data Platform, read our engineering blog, including how we built our modern data stack leveraging open-source tools! This position is based in our San Francisco office. What You'll Be Doing * Lead and grow one or more teams of engineers building data infrastructure that processes petabytes of data across millions of users * Partner with People and Technical leaders to set technical direction and define the roadmap for your team(s) * Drive a culture of 80/20 thinking, quality-centered execution, and timely decision-making to ensure your team consistently ships high-impact results * Build strong relationships with cross-functional partners to align technical solutions with business goals * Help your team navigate ambiguity while maintaining momentum toward business outcomes What you should have * 2+ years of engineering leadership and 7+ years of software engineering experience with expertise in large-scale distributed systems or data infrastructure * Strong people management skills including hiring, performance management, coaching, and conflict resolution * Demonstrated ability to set the pace for a team, remove blockers, and drive projects to completion * Excellent communication skills with ability to foster clear, effective dialogue across all levels and audiences * Proven track record independently making sound technical decisions through ambiguity in partnership with cross-functional stakeholders * Experience with the data ecosystem: pipelines, ETL, modeling, and/or warehousing (Kafka, Spark, Flink, Airflow, Dagster, SQL, etc.) * Cloud infrastructure knowledge (AWS, GCP, Azure) or containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties). Relocation assistance may be available. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $248,000 to $310,000 + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role and level. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits. Why Discord?  Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We're a multiplatform, multigenerational and multiplayer platform that helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests, and helps developers build and grow their businesses. We believe games give us a way to have fun with our favorite people, whether listening to music together or grinding in competitive matches for diamond rank. Join us in our mission! Your future is just a click away! Discord is committed to inclusion and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. We want you to feel set up for success, so if you are in need of reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know. Please see our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy for details regarding Discord’s collection and usage of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking HERE.