Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) Careers at Discord - San Francisco, CA | Apply Now!
Discord
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) Careers at Discord - San Francisco, CA | Apply Now!
Job Description
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) at Discord - San Francisco, CA
Role Overview
Discord, the leading voice and community platform used by over 200 million people monthly, is hiring a Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) in San Francisco, CA. With 90% of users playing games and spending 1.5 billion hours monthly on thousands of titles, Discord is central to the gaming ecosystem. This senior-level role on the Safety ML team focuses on building and deploying cutting-edge machine learning models to protect users through real-time content moderation, risk assessment, and account integrity systems.
As a Senior ML Engineer, you'll tackle complex challenges in keeping Discord's massive community safe while enabling authentic interactions. You'll develop scalable ML systems that detect harmful content, anomalous behaviors, and policy violations at unprecedented scale. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Machine Learning, Safety, you'll collaborate across product, engineering, design, policy, legal, and Trust & Safety teams to deliver impactful solutions that maintain Discord's reputation as a safe gaming hub.
This role demands deep ML expertise, production deployment experience, and the ability to navigate ambiguous problems with first-principles thinking. If you thrive in high-impact environments building safety infrastructure for hundreds of millions of users, this position offers unparalleled opportunities to shape the future of online community safety.
Key Responsibilities
The Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) role involves hands-on technical work combined with strategic cross-functional partnership. Here's what you'll do daily:
- Data Analysis & Pattern Recognition: Dive into petabyte-scale user data to uncover emerging risk patterns, threat vectors, and moderation opportunities that inform model architecture decisions.
- Model Development: Design, prototype, and iterate on sophisticated ML models for content understanding, toxicity detection, harassment identification, and spam prevention using state-of-the-art techniques.
- Real-Time Systems: Build low-latency inference pipelines that process millions of messages, voice clips, and interactions per minute to enable instant moderation decisions.
- Batch Processing: Develop efficient ETL pipelines for account-level risk scoring, reputation modeling, and historical analysis across Discord's 200M+ user base.
- Production Deployment: Own the full ML lifecycle from experimentation to scalable deployment, including model serving infrastructure, A/B testing frameworks, and monitoring dashboards.
- Data Curation: Partner with Trust & Safety experts to create golden datasets, implement active learning loops, and scale annotation workflows for continuous model improvement.
- Cross-Functional Delivery: Translate complex policy requirements into technical specifications and deliver ML solutions that balance safety, user experience, and platform scalability.
- Performance Monitoring: Establish robust evaluation metrics, drift detection, and retraining pipelines to maintain model efficacy as user behaviors and threats evolve.
- Backend Engineering: Write production Python code for model integration, API development, and infrastructure automation using Discord's modern tech stack.
- Documentation & Best Practices: Author comprehensive technical documentation and champion ML engineering standards across the Safety organization.
- Research Integration: Stay ahead of academic and industry ML advancements in safety, applying novel techniques to Discord's unique challenges.
- Stakeholder Communication: Present technical results, model limitations, and roadmap recommendations to executive leadership and cross-functional partners.
This role requires balancing immediate production needs with long-term research initiatives, making it ideal for ML engineers who excel in both execution and innovation.
Qualifications & Requirements
Discord seeks proven senior talent with the technical depth and soft skills to succeed in this high-visibility role:
- 4+ years of hands-on ML engineering or applied ML experience in production environments
- Expert-level Python proficiency with deep experience in PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow
- Demonstrated success shipping scalable ML systems serving millions of users daily
- Full ownership experience taking ML projects from research to production deployment
- Strong statistical foundation and experimental design expertise
- Proven ability to solve ambiguous, complex problems through first-principles reasoning
- Track record of creative technical solutions with pragmatic implementation
- Growth mindset demonstrated through feedback-seeking and continuous learning
- Exceptional cross-functional collaboration across engineering, product, legal, and policy
- Advanced degree (MS/PhD preferred) in Computer Science, ML, Statistics, or related quantitative field
- Experience with content moderation, safety systems, or trust infrastructure is highly desirable
- Familiarity with large-scale distributed systems and real-time ML serving
Salary & Benefits
Compensation: $220,000 - $247,500 base salary + equity + comprehensive benefits. Total compensation includes significant equity upside in a high-growth gaming platform.
Benefits Package:
- Top-tier medical, dental, vision coverage with low employee premiums
- 401(k) with generous company match
- Unlimited PTO with encouragement to disconnect
- 16 weeks fully-paid parental leave for all parents
- $1,500+ annual wellness stipend
- Full home office setup including hardware
- Professional development budget for conferences/courses
- Weekly catered meals and unlimited snacks
- Discord Nitro Gold subscription
- Gaming peripherals and hardware reimbursement
- Mental health support through Lyra Health
- Employee-led affinity groups and DEI initiatives
San Francisco base with hybrid work flexibility for local candidates.
Why Join Discord?
Discord isn't just another social platform—it's the essential hub for 200M+ gamers worldwide. We're redefining how people connect through games, creating deeper friendships and communities. Our Safety ML team protects this magic by building world-class moderation systems that scale with our explosive growth.
What Sets Discord Apart:
- Massive Impact: Your models will protect hundreds of millions while enabling authentic gaming communities
- Cutting-Edge Challenges: Solve novel ML problems at internet scale with real-time voice, text, and behavior data
- Top Talent: Work with world-class researchers and engineers pushing safety ML boundaries
- Gaming Culture: Join a team that lives and breathes gaming with events, game nights, and hardware perks
- Growth Opportunities: Rapid promotion paths for high performers in our flat, collaborative structure
Discord offers the perfect blend of startup energy with mature infrastructure, letting you focus on innovation rather than reinventing wheels.
How to Apply
Ready to safeguard the future of gaming communities? Submit your application including:
- Resume highlighting ML production experience
- GitHub/portfolio with relevant ML projects
- Brief note on your most impactful safety/ML project
Discord's interview process includes technical screens, ML system design, cross-functional collaboration simulation, and team interviews. We prioritize diverse perspectives and make offers to exceptional candidates quickly.
Discord is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity. We celebrate differences and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
Locations
- San Francisco, California, United States
Salary
220,000 - 247,500 USD / yearly
231,000 - 272,250 USD / yearly
Source: ai estimated
* This is an estimated range based on market data and may vary based on experience and qualifications.
Skills Required
- Machine Learning Engineeringintermediate
- Python Programmingintermediate
- PyTorchintermediate
- JAXintermediate
- TensorFlowintermediate
- Model Deploymentintermediate
- Data Analysisintermediate
- Risk Detectionintermediate
- Anomaly Detectionintermediate
- Backend Developmentintermediate
- Scalable ML Systemsintermediate
- Production ML Pipelinesintermediate
- Data Labelingintermediate
- Model Evaluationintermediate
- Cross-Functional Collaborationintermediate
- First Principles Thinkingintermediate
- Statistical Modelingintermediate
- Real-Time ML Systemsintermediate
- Batch Processing Systemsintermediate
- Account Integrity MLintermediate
Required Qualifications
- 4+ years of experience in ML engineering or applied ML roles (experience)
- Strong coding skills in Python with fluency in ML frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow (experience)
- Experience building performant machine learning systems at scale (experience)
- Proven track record driving ML projects from ideation to production (experience)
- Ability to think from first principles with creative problem-solving (experience)
- Clear reasoning and pragmatic solutions for complex problems (experience)
- Growth mindset with commitment to seeking feedback and continuous improvement (experience)
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across teams (experience)
- History of partnering with engineering, data science, legal, policy, and product teams (experience)
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or related field (experience)
- Experience with real-time and batch ML systems for content moderation (experience)
- Familiarity with safety and trust infrastructure in large-scale platforms (experience)
Responsibilities
- Analyze large-scale user data to identify emerging risk patterns and threats
- Design and develop machine learning models for content understanding and moderation
- Build real-time detection systems for anomalous user behavior and violations
- Create batch processing pipelines for account integrity and risk evaluation
- Collaborate with product managers to integrate ML solutions into user-facing features
- Partner with engineering teams to deploy models into production environments
- Work with Trust & Safety teams to curate high-quality golden label datasets
- Improve data labeling techniques and annotation workflows at scale
- Write scalable backend code to support ML model inference and serving
- Monitor model performance in production and implement retraining pipelines
- Document modeling approaches, system architecture, and best practices
- Evaluate model effectiveness using appropriate metrics and A/B testing
- Stay updated on latest ML research relevant to safety and moderation
- Contribute to policy discussions informing ML model development
Benefits
- general: Competitive base salary $220,000 - $247,500 USD
- general: Significant equity package with stock options
- general: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance
- general: 401(k) matching program
- general: Unlimited PTO policy
- general: Generous parental leave (16 weeks fully paid)
- general: Annual wellness stipend
- general: Home office setup allowance
- general: Learning and development budget
- general: Weekly catered lunches and fully stocked kitchens
- general: Discord Nitro subscription
- general: Gaming hardware reimbursement
- general: Mental health support through dedicated programs
- general: Employee resource groups and diversity initiatives
- general: Flexible work hours and hybrid options
Tags & Categories
Answer 10 quick questions to check your fit for Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) Careers at Discord - San Francisco, CA | Apply Now! @ Discord.
Related Books and Jobs
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) Careers at Discord - San Francisco, CA | Apply Now!
Discord
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) Careers at Discord - San Francisco, CA | Apply Now!
Job Description
Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) at Discord - San Francisco, CA
Role Overview
Discord, the leading voice and community platform used by over 200 million people monthly, is hiring a Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) in San Francisco, CA. With 90% of users playing games and spending 1.5 billion hours monthly on thousands of titles, Discord is central to the gaming ecosystem. This senior-level role on the Safety ML team focuses on building and deploying cutting-edge machine learning models to protect users through real-time content moderation, risk assessment, and account integrity systems.
As a Senior ML Engineer, you'll tackle complex challenges in keeping Discord's massive community safe while enabling authentic interactions. You'll develop scalable ML systems that detect harmful content, anomalous behaviors, and policy violations at unprecedented scale. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Machine Learning, Safety, you'll collaborate across product, engineering, design, policy, legal, and Trust & Safety teams to deliver impactful solutions that maintain Discord's reputation as a safe gaming hub.
This role demands deep ML expertise, production deployment experience, and the ability to navigate ambiguous problems with first-principles thinking. If you thrive in high-impact environments building safety infrastructure for hundreds of millions of users, this position offers unparalleled opportunities to shape the future of online community safety.
Key Responsibilities
The Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) role involves hands-on technical work combined with strategic cross-functional partnership. Here's what you'll do daily:
- Data Analysis & Pattern Recognition: Dive into petabyte-scale user data to uncover emerging risk patterns, threat vectors, and moderation opportunities that inform model architecture decisions.
- Model Development: Design, prototype, and iterate on sophisticated ML models for content understanding, toxicity detection, harassment identification, and spam prevention using state-of-the-art techniques.
- Real-Time Systems: Build low-latency inference pipelines that process millions of messages, voice clips, and interactions per minute to enable instant moderation decisions.
- Batch Processing: Develop efficient ETL pipelines for account-level risk scoring, reputation modeling, and historical analysis across Discord's 200M+ user base.
- Production Deployment: Own the full ML lifecycle from experimentation to scalable deployment, including model serving infrastructure, A/B testing frameworks, and monitoring dashboards.
- Data Curation: Partner with Trust & Safety experts to create golden datasets, implement active learning loops, and scale annotation workflows for continuous model improvement.
- Cross-Functional Delivery: Translate complex policy requirements into technical specifications and deliver ML solutions that balance safety, user experience, and platform scalability.
- Performance Monitoring: Establish robust evaluation metrics, drift detection, and retraining pipelines to maintain model efficacy as user behaviors and threats evolve.
- Backend Engineering: Write production Python code for model integration, API development, and infrastructure automation using Discord's modern tech stack.
- Documentation & Best Practices: Author comprehensive technical documentation and champion ML engineering standards across the Safety organization.
- Research Integration: Stay ahead of academic and industry ML advancements in safety, applying novel techniques to Discord's unique challenges.
- Stakeholder Communication: Present technical results, model limitations, and roadmap recommendations to executive leadership and cross-functional partners.
This role requires balancing immediate production needs with long-term research initiatives, making it ideal for ML engineers who excel in both execution and innovation.
Qualifications & Requirements
Discord seeks proven senior talent with the technical depth and soft skills to succeed in this high-visibility role:
- 4+ years of hands-on ML engineering or applied ML experience in production environments
- Expert-level Python proficiency with deep experience in PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow
- Demonstrated success shipping scalable ML systems serving millions of users daily
- Full ownership experience taking ML projects from research to production deployment
- Strong statistical foundation and experimental design expertise
- Proven ability to solve ambiguous, complex problems through first-principles reasoning
- Track record of creative technical solutions with pragmatic implementation
- Growth mindset demonstrated through feedback-seeking and continuous learning
- Exceptional cross-functional collaboration across engineering, product, legal, and policy
- Advanced degree (MS/PhD preferred) in Computer Science, ML, Statistics, or related quantitative field
- Experience with content moderation, safety systems, or trust infrastructure is highly desirable
- Familiarity with large-scale distributed systems and real-time ML serving
Salary & Benefits
Compensation: $220,000 - $247,500 base salary + equity + comprehensive benefits. Total compensation includes significant equity upside in a high-growth gaming platform.
Benefits Package:
- Top-tier medical, dental, vision coverage with low employee premiums
- 401(k) with generous company match
- Unlimited PTO with encouragement to disconnect
- 16 weeks fully-paid parental leave for all parents
- $1,500+ annual wellness stipend
- Full home office setup including hardware
- Professional development budget for conferences/courses
- Weekly catered meals and unlimited snacks
- Discord Nitro Gold subscription
- Gaming peripherals and hardware reimbursement
- Mental health support through Lyra Health
- Employee-led affinity groups and DEI initiatives
San Francisco base with hybrid work flexibility for local candidates.
Why Join Discord?
Discord isn't just another social platform—it's the essential hub for 200M+ gamers worldwide. We're redefining how people connect through games, creating deeper friendships and communities. Our Safety ML team protects this magic by building world-class moderation systems that scale with our explosive growth.
What Sets Discord Apart:
- Massive Impact: Your models will protect hundreds of millions while enabling authentic gaming communities
- Cutting-Edge Challenges: Solve novel ML problems at internet scale with real-time voice, text, and behavior data
- Top Talent: Work with world-class researchers and engineers pushing safety ML boundaries
- Gaming Culture: Join a team that lives and breathes gaming with events, game nights, and hardware perks
- Growth Opportunities: Rapid promotion paths for high performers in our flat, collaborative structure
Discord offers the perfect blend of startup energy with mature infrastructure, letting you focus on innovation rather than reinventing wheels.
How to Apply
Ready to safeguard the future of gaming communities? Submit your application including:
- Resume highlighting ML production experience
- GitHub/portfolio with relevant ML projects
- Brief note on your most impactful safety/ML project
Discord's interview process includes technical screens, ML system design, cross-functional collaboration simulation, and team interviews. We prioritize diverse perspectives and make offers to exceptional candidates quickly.
Discord is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity. We celebrate differences and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.
Locations
- San Francisco, California, United States
Salary
220,000 - 247,500 USD / yearly
231,000 - 272,250 USD / yearly
Source: ai estimated
* This is an estimated range based on market data and may vary based on experience and qualifications.
Skills Required
- Machine Learning Engineeringintermediate
- Python Programmingintermediate
- PyTorchintermediate
- JAXintermediate
- TensorFlowintermediate
- Model Deploymentintermediate
- Data Analysisintermediate
- Risk Detectionintermediate
- Anomaly Detectionintermediate
- Backend Developmentintermediate
- Scalable ML Systemsintermediate
- Production ML Pipelinesintermediate
- Data Labelingintermediate
- Model Evaluationintermediate
- Cross-Functional Collaborationintermediate
- First Principles Thinkingintermediate
- Statistical Modelingintermediate
- Real-Time ML Systemsintermediate
- Batch Processing Systemsintermediate
- Account Integrity MLintermediate
Required Qualifications
- 4+ years of experience in ML engineering or applied ML roles (experience)
- Strong coding skills in Python with fluency in ML frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow (experience)
- Experience building performant machine learning systems at scale (experience)
- Proven track record driving ML projects from ideation to production (experience)
- Ability to think from first principles with creative problem-solving (experience)
- Clear reasoning and pragmatic solutions for complex problems (experience)
- Growth mindset with commitment to seeking feedback and continuous improvement (experience)
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across teams (experience)
- History of partnering with engineering, data science, legal, policy, and product teams (experience)
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or related field (experience)
- Experience with real-time and batch ML systems for content moderation (experience)
- Familiarity with safety and trust infrastructure in large-scale platforms (experience)
Responsibilities
- Analyze large-scale user data to identify emerging risk patterns and threats
- Design and develop machine learning models for content understanding and moderation
- Build real-time detection systems for anomalous user behavior and violations
- Create batch processing pipelines for account integrity and risk evaluation
- Collaborate with product managers to integrate ML solutions into user-facing features
- Partner with engineering teams to deploy models into production environments
- Work with Trust & Safety teams to curate high-quality golden label datasets
- Improve data labeling techniques and annotation workflows at scale
- Write scalable backend code to support ML model inference and serving
- Monitor model performance in production and implement retraining pipelines
- Document modeling approaches, system architecture, and best practices
- Evaluate model effectiveness using appropriate metrics and A/B testing
- Stay updated on latest ML research relevant to safety and moderation
- Contribute to policy discussions informing ML model development
Benefits
- general: Competitive base salary $220,000 - $247,500 USD
- general: Significant equity package with stock options
- general: Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance
- general: 401(k) matching program
- general: Unlimited PTO policy
- general: Generous parental leave (16 weeks fully paid)
- general: Annual wellness stipend
- general: Home office setup allowance
- general: Learning and development budget
- general: Weekly catered lunches and fully stocked kitchens
- general: Discord Nitro subscription
- general: Gaming hardware reimbursement
- general: Mental health support through dedicated programs
- general: Employee resource groups and diversity initiatives
- general: Flexible work hours and hybrid options
Tags & Categories
Answer 10 quick questions to check your fit for Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Safety) Careers at Discord - San Francisco, CA | Apply Now! @ Discord.
Related Books and Jobs