Role Overview

As a Senior Software Engineer on Discord's Platform Infrastructure team, you'll architect and maintain the critical systems handling hundreds of thousands of requests per second and tens of billions of daily transactions. Your work directly impacts every user interaction, from voice chats during gaming sessions to seamless community management. This senior-level role requires deep expertise in distributed systems, backend development, and production operations.

Discord's infrastructure enables rapid feature delivery while maintaining exceptional reliability. You'll collaborate with small, talented teams passionate about gaming and technology, continuously improving our Python and Rust-based services running on Kubernetes with Google Pub/Sub messaging.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, this role offers relocation assistance and positions you at the heart of gaming's future, where social interaction meets immersive gameplay.

Key Responsibilities

Your day-to-day will focus on mission-critical systems that power Discord's growth:

• Ensure 99.99% uptime for systems serving 200M+ monthly users playing thousands of games
• Design and implement scalable distributed systems handling extreme traffic volumes
• Develop high-performance backend services using Python, Rust, and containerized architectures
• Enable safe, rapid deployments across dozens of engineering teams via advanced CI/CD pipelines
• Build comprehensive observability stacks with metrics, tracing, and alerting for complex troubleshooting
• Create robust monitoring pipelines to proactively identify and resolve performance bottlenecks
• Mentor junior engineers, conduct code reviews, and foster technical leadership within the team
• Optimize infrastructure costs while maintaining reliability at massive scale
• Integrate with Google Pub/Sub and other message queues for real-time data processing
• Contribute to open source projects that enhance Discord's platform capabilities
• Lead cross-team initiatives to standardize infrastructure practices across the organization
• Instrument services for deep insights into user behavior and system performance
• Drive technical decisions balancing innovation speed with production stability

Qualifications

We're seeking proven senior engineers with:

• 5+ years designing backend systems that scale to millions of users
• Hands-on experience operating distributed systems in production environments
• Expertise scaling services handling billions of transactions daily
• Deep knowledge of open source libraries with ability to debug source code
• Strong decision-making skills for leading complex engineering projects
• Experience with Python, Rust, Kubernetes, and message queue systems like Google Pub/Sub
• Familiarity with gevent or Python async programming internals
• Track record mentoring engineers and driving team technical excellence
• Comfortable in fast-paced environments with ambiguous problem spaces
• Passion for gaming and Discord's mission to connect players worldwide

Bonus Points: Open source contributions, Discord bot development, Kubernetes production experience.

Salary & Benefits

Compensation: $196,000 - $220,500 base salary + equity + comprehensive benefits package. Total compensation includes performance bonuses and stock options vesting over 4 years.

Benefits Highlights:

• Unlimited PTO with wellness days
• Full medical, dental, vision coverage
• 401(k) with 4% match
• Generous parental leave (16 weeks)
• Annual $2,000 learning stipend
• Relocation package for Bay Area move
• Free meals, snacks, gym reimbursement
• Mental health support programs

This package positions Discord as a top employer for senior software engineers in San Francisco.

Why Join Discord?

Discord isn't just another social platform—it's the essential hub for 200M+ gamers worldwide. Your infrastructure work powers voice chat during epic Fortnite sessions, community discovery for new MMOs, and real-time collaboration in competitive esports.

Impact: Every system you build affects millions of daily interactions. Join a small team of elite engineers tackling gaming's biggest scalability challenges.

Culture: Remote-friendly hybrid model in SF Bay Area. Weekly game nights, hackathons, and direct access to leadership. We're gamers building for gamers.

Growth: Rapid promotion paths for high performers. 30% of senior engineers were promoted internally last year. Clear career ladders to Staff/Principal levels.

Discord's $15B+ valuation and 500% user growth since 2020 make this prime time to join a gaming infrastructure leader.

How to Apply

Ready to power the future of gaming? Submit your resume highlighting distributed systems experience. Include GitHub/open source links and Discord bot projects if applicable.

Application Process:

1. Online application (5 minutes)
2. Technical screen with infrastructure scenarios
3. Take-home focused on system design/scalability
4. Virtual onsite with 4 engineers + cross-team pairing
5. Leadership chat and offer

We review applications weekly. Bay Area candidates prioritized, but exceptional talent worldwide considered with relocation.

Discord is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity in gaming and tech.