Role Overview

The Realtime Infrastructure team at Discord sits at the heart of our platform's success. We build and maintain the highest-scale services that dispatch every update to user sessions, ensuring seamless communication for gamers worldwide. Over 90% of Discord users play games, making our infrastructure uniquely positioned in the future of social gaming.

As a Software Engineer on this team, you'll have a direct impact on Discord's reliability, performance, and ability to scale. Reporting to the Senior Engineering Manager of Realtime Infrastructure, you'll work on systems that 'just work' for millions of users. This role combines deep systems engineering with collaboration across product teams to launch innovative features.

Discord's Bay Area office (covering Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties) is where the magic happens. Relocation assistance is available for qualified candidates ready to join our mission.

Key Responsibilities

Your day-to-day will involve hands-on engineering at massive scale:

• Architect and build large-scale, reliable distributed systems handling realtime updates.
• Operate and maintain tier-0 critical services powering Discord's text chat.
• Collaborate with product engineers to design APIs and infrastructure for new features like voice integration and gaming overlays.
• Implement advanced monitoring, alerting, and observability to ensure 99.99% uptime.
• Optimize system performance to reduce latency for global gaming sessions.
• Debug complex issues in distributed environments using tools like Elixir, GCP, and Kubernetes.
• Manage infrastructure with IaC tools (Terraform, Salt, k8s) for zero-downtime deployments.
• Contribute to open-source projects and Discord's bot/app ecosystem.
• Participate in on-call rotations with a supportive team of elite engineers.
• Drive reliability initiatives to support 200M+ MAU growth.
• Mentor junior engineers on distributed systems best practices.
• Experiment with cutting-edge technologies to push gaming communication boundaries.
• Analyze metrics and lead post-mortems for continuous improvement.

This role demands both coding prowess and operational excellence, making it ideal for engineers who thrive in high-stakes environments.

Qualifications

To succeed, you'll need:

• 2+ years experience designing and implementing backend systems.
• Proven track record solving distributed systems challenges at scale.
• Experience operating mission-critical tier-0 services with SLAs.
• Deep knowledge of monitoring tools (Prometheus, Grafana) and alerting strategies.
• Comfort digging into open-source codebases for debugging and optimization.
• Bonus: Elixir expertise or functional programming background.
• Bonus: Cloud experience (GCP preferred, AWS).
• Bonus: DevOps proficiency (Terraform, Kubernetes, Salt).
• Bonus: Open-source contributions or Discord bot/app development.
• Strong communication skills for cross-team collaboration.

Discord power users and gamers get bonus points—after all, we build for gamers, by gamers!

Salary & Benefits

Base Salary: $160,000 - $180,000 USD (depending on experience), plus equity and comprehensive benefits. Total compensation can exceed $250K+ with equity growth.

Discord's perks include unlimited PTO, full health coverage, 401(k) matching, relocation support, gaming setups, catered meals, wellness stipends, parental leave, and more. Join a company where your work fuels friendships around games.

Why Join Discord?

Discord isn't just a chat app—it's the social hub for modern gaming. We're multiplatform, multigenerational, and multiplayer, helping people connect over shared passions. Our Realtime Infrastructure team powers this magic, and you'll be at the forefront.

Work with brilliant engineers who've scaled one of the world's largest comms platforms. Enjoy Bay Area innovation culture, flexible hours, and a mission-driven environment. Discord's growth trajectory means your impact will shape gaming's future.

From voice chats during epic raids to hanging out post-game, your systems enable real human connections. Plus, perks like Discord Nitro and gaming reimbursements keep it fun.

How to Apply

Ready to build realtime magic? Submit your resume, GitHub, and a note on your favorite Discord gaming moment. We review applications on a rolling basis. Must be eligible to work in the US and willing to relocate to SF Bay Area.

Diversity at Discord: We celebrate all backgrounds. Discord is an equal opportunity employer.