Director of Engineering, Discord
Developer Ecosystem
$400-450k
+ Equity
More information about location
2-3 days a week in office
Voice, video and text communication platform
Open for applications
Voice, video and text communication platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$400-450k
+ Equity
More information about location
2-3 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help friends and communities come together to hang out and explore their interests.
Role
Who you are
- You have 5+ years of experience as a Software Engineer with a strong technical foundation
- You have 5+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager and have successfully managed groups of 3+ Engineering Managers and 15+ Software Engineers
- You have 2+ years of experience managing other Managers
- You have experience hiring and growing senior leaders and managers
- You enjoy coming up with pragmatic solutions to concrete problems using first principles thinking
- You are passionate about coaching and leading other engineers, but remain technically hands-on enough to engage in architecture discussions and lead conversations with technical directors at game companies
- You understand the mindset of developers and have experience building products or platforms for developer audiences
- 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)
Desirable
- Experience in the gaming industry (AAA publishers, platform providers, or game studios)
- Experience building commerce platforms, microtransaction systems, or web shops at scale
- Background building out revenue-generating infrastructure that supports high-volume transactions
- SDK design or platform API experience
- Experience defining and building new teams and strategies from scratch
What the job involves
- Discord is looking for an experienced, technical, and mission-driven Director of Engineering to lead our commerce platform and on-platform player experience teams
- You will report directly to the VP of Engineering and will be instrumental in building out our commerce strategy while managing the teams responsible for how game developers show up on Discord
- Build and lead multiple teams focused on commerce platform development and the in-Discord player experience by hiring, coaching, and instilling a sense of ownership and impact
- Define and drive our commerce platform strategy from the ground up, including organizing existing team members and building out new capabilities to support game developers in managing shop queues and enabling purchases through Discord
- Partner closely with major publishers and large game developers to drive adoption of our platform, understanding the entire customer lifecycle journey and building tools that create value for developers, Discord, and players
- Collaborate with Product leadership to provide vision and culture for your teams while working with leads and executive partners across the company
- Use your technical expertise to build high-performance engineering teams capable of supporting a commerce platform at scale
- Work with other Engineering leaders to continuously improve the Engineering organization and uphold our workplace philosophy
Our take
Discord is an industry giant in the chat app space. The free platform has rapidly become one of the most popular services in the sector since being founded in 2015. It counts over 200M active users in 19M communities, successfully expanding beyond its original focus on video game players to become a broader social networking app and public forum.
Discord's userbase has grown rapidly as remote work has become the norm and a new generation of internet users has come online, attracted to its youthful presentation and plethora of gaming and social tools. It has since fended off takeover bids from Microsoft and interest from other giants such as Amazon and X, and has grown into a profitable company, funded by optional subscription fees and commissions from sales through the platform.
Discord’s remarkable growth, however, is not without obstacles. The company faces competition from deep-pocketed giants like Facebook, and regulatory concerns from those worried about the platform’s relatively light chat moderation. However, the company has the resources and expertise to adapt. For example, the acquisition of harassment detection software company Sentropy will go a long way towards placating the concerns of critics, as will the 2024 acquisition of teen app Gas used to give anonymous compliments to friends. All of these purchases are part of Discord's move to expand out of its mostly gaming-focused customer base.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
28% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Sep 2021
$500m
SERIES H
Dec 2020
$100m
SERIES H
Total funding: $979.3m
Company HQ
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Stanislav Vishnevskiy
(Co-Founder & CTO)Previously worked as a Software Engineer at Casamba and then Kabam. Also worked as a Lead Software Engineer at GREE International, and founded social network Guildwork.com in 2009.
Humam Sakhnini
(CEO)Humam joined the Discord team in 2025 as CEO. Prior to this, he was the VIce Chairman and Chief Strategy & Talent Officer at Activision Blizzard as well as the CFO/President at King. He also spent 8 years at McKinsey & Company as a Partner.
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