Engineering Manager, Discord
Machine Learning, Safety
$272-340k
+ Equity
Voice, video and text communication platform
Open for applications
Voice, video and text communication platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$272-340k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help friends and communities come together to hang out and explore their interests.
Role
Who you are
- We're looking for a highly technical, hands-on, and mission-driven Engineering Manager to lead our Safety ML team
- You have 5+ years of experience as a Machine Learning Engineer, Data Scientist, or Applied Scientist
- You have 3+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager and successfully managed a team of 5+ engineers
- You have hands-on depth in at least one of: abuse/fraud detection, content classification, behavioral modeling, graph-based modeling, or LLM-based classification systems
- You have strong communication skills and the ability to work well cross-functionally
- You thrive in ambiguous environments and get excited about figuring out solutions to complex problems, and then executing on them
- You are a first principles thinker that can work with others to come up with pragmatic solutions
- You have a proven record of shipping ML systems to production at scale
- You are passionate about coaching and leading other engineers, but can roll up your sleeves and get elbow deep in code when needed
- You keep up with the industry trends and continuously identify new technologies to leverage to solve technical problems
What the job involves
- Discord's Safety ML team builds the machine learning systems that protect 200M+ users. The team's mission is to make Discord a place where people can build genuine friendships without exposure to harm, at a scale where manual review alone can never keep up
- As the manager responsible for Safety ML, you will own the detection systems that sit between attackers and our users; real-time and batch models for content understanding, account integrity, and platform abuse
- Build and lead an exceptional team of highly-engaged ML engineers by hiring, coaching, and instilling a sense of ownership and impact
- Drive the technical vision and roadmap for Safety ML by collaborating with your team and partners across Trust & Safety, Product, Policy, Legal, and Data Science
- Own the end-to-end lifecycle of production safety models: defining new capabilities, measuring performance, and monitoring the operational health of systems that make millions of enforcement decisions per day
- Manage processes and leverage your technical expertise to continually raise the bar and ensure your team delivers extraordinary results
- Partner with Trust & Safety on label quality, golden sets, and automating manual investigations
- Work with other Engineering Managers 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 90M daily 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, isn't without obstacles. The company faces competition from deep-pocketed rivals such as Meta and ongoing scrutiny over moderation and user safety. Despite this, Discord has continued to strengthen its platform through investments in privacy and accessibility, including the rollout of end-to-end encrypted voice and video calls for all users and the launch of a native Windows on ARM app to improve performance on next-generation devices. Alongside acquisitions such as Sentropy and Gas, these developments show just how hard Discord is pushing beyond its gaming roots.
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 benefits
- Discord HQ: At Discord, we believe great work can happen anywhere, whether in person or virtually. Our flexible work model empowers our people to choose where they work best: at home, in one of our offices like our San Francisco HQ, or a mix of both.
- Grow together: Look forward to developing both professionally and personally alongside your colleagues at Discord. All of our managers go through a leadership program, and we offer enriching trainings for everyone. No matter what your interests or skills are, there's a place on our platform for you to find and build belonging.
- Money matters: Discord strives to offer fair and competitive compensation packages, including equity. You'll have room to grow and be rewarded based on your contributions and impact at the company. Take advantage of our retirement offerings (including 401k matching in the US) to meet your financial goals.
- Health benefits; At Discord, we health-care about you! We offer medical, dental, vision, reproductive, gender-affirming, and mental healthcare to our employees.
- Family support: Spend some quality time with the next generation with 12+ weeks parental leave, as well as fertility, adoption, and surrogacy benefits.
- R&R: Stay refreshed with four weeks of PTO, 16 paid holidays each year including a week off for the winter holidays, and flexible sick time (which includes mental health days).
- Wellness on us: Take advantage of a $375 quarterly stipend for your gym membership or other activities to keep you feeling great.
- Giving back: Whatever social cause you're passionate about, take a day (or two) off to make an impact. While you're at it, take advantage of $1,000/year in donation matching to charitable organizations!
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, they were the Vice Chairman and Chief Strategy & Talent Officer at Activision Blizzard as well as the CFO/President at King. They also spent 8 years at McKinsey & Company as a Partner.
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