Senior Staff Software Engineer, Data and ML Platform

Job Description

Discord is about giving people the power to create space to find belonging in their lives. We want to make it easier for you to talk regularly with the people you care about. We want you to build genuine relationships with your friends and communities close to home or around the world. Original, reliable, playful, and relatable. These are the values that connect our users and our employees at… Discord.
We are seeking an accomplished and experienced Senior Staff software Engineer to join our dynamic team. As a leader of the Data and Machine Learning Platform team, you will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining our data and AIML infrastructure and services. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, software engineers, MLEs and product managers, to deliver modern and bleeding-edge solutions that drive business insights and innovation. This role reports to our Director of Engineering, Data Platform.
What You’ll Be Doing
? Lead the design, implementation, and optimization of our data and machine learning platforms, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance.
? Develop and maintain data pipelines, ETL processes, and data models to support analytical and machine learning workflows.
? Design and implement data storage solutions, including relational databases, data lakes, and distributed systems.
? Collaborate with data scientists to deploy and operationalize machine learning models into production environments.
? Build monitoring, logging, and alerting systems to ensure the health and performance of data services.
? Promote and drive best practices in data governance, security, and compliance across the organization.
? Mentor junior engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth.
? Stay up-to-date with industry trends and emerging technologies in data platform and machine learning.
What You Should Have:
? 8+ years of experience in software development, with a focus on databases, data infrastructure, or machine learning platforms.
? Proficiency with open source data/ml infrastructure projects and experience working with open source communities.
? Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, Rust, or similar.
? Strong experience with big data technologies such as Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, and distributed computing frameworks.
? Hands-on expertise with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
? Solid understanding of data modeling, database design, and SQL.
? Experience with containerization (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and microservices architecture.
? Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment.
? Strong experience communicating updates and resolutions to cross-functional partners and customers.

Bonus Points:
? A strong passion for Discord and gaming
? Significant contributions to popular and widely adopted open-source projects and technologies
? Experience in building a data or machine learning platform from scratch, or in transforming legacy solutions to a modern tech stack

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $256,000 to $279,000 + 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.

About Us

Discord is a voice, video and text app that helps friends come together to hang out, have fun, and play games. With over 150 million monthly users, Discord has grown to become one of the most popular communications services in the world. Discord offers a premium subscription called Nitro that gives users special perks like higher quality streams and fun customizations.

We?re working toward an inclusive world where no one feels like an outsider, where genuine human connection is a click, text chat, or voice call away. A place where everyone can find belonging. Challenging? Heck yes. Rewarding? Double heck yes. It?s a mission that gives us the chance to positively impact millions of people all over the world. So if this strikes a chord with you, come build belonging with us