Director of Engineering, Discord
Client & Performance
$311-342k
+ Equity
1+ day a week in office
Voice, video and text communication platform
Open for applications
Voice, video and text communication platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$311-342k
+ Equity
1+ day a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
Discord's mission is 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 and have maintained technical depth as a leader
- You have 5+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager and successfully managed groups of 3+ Engineering Managers and 15+ Software Engineers
- You have 2+ years of experience managing other Managers
- You enjoy coming up with pragmatic solutions to concrete problems using first principles thinking
- You deeply understand mobile performance and React Native and are excited by the challenge of delivering an incredible product to 200 million users
- You are passionate about coaching and leading other engineers, but secretly love getting elbow deep in architecture design when the opportunities arise
- You keep up with the industry trends and identify new tools to use to solve technical problems — and are excited to push the envelope
Desirable
- Experience defining and building new teams and departments from scratch
- A background owning critical performance metrics at a company level
- C++ and Native development experience, particularly on mobile
- Experience hiring for fast-growing startups
What the job involves
- In this role, you will be responsible for leading teams responsible for the underlying building blocks of our core experience — the client itself.
- With a charter that spans from the tooling to the native code to the foundational React software, across all of the platforms we target, the teams here are shipping meaningful, business impacting code every day. In 2025, you will focus heavily on our mobile experience, driving top line growth and helping create international opportunities for the business in 2026 and beyond
- You will report to our VP of Core Technology and have significant leadership and influence on the evolution of Discord's overall Engineering organization
- Build and lead multiple teams of highly-engaged managers and engineers by hiring, coaching, and instilling a sense of ownership and impact
- Collaborate with peers across the business to drive meaningful business impact in user engagement metrics by delivering on mobile performance and quality goals
- Work with best-in-class talent, inside and outside of Discord, to set the bar for what is possible with React Native
- Drive public perception by working with teams like Marketing and Comms to talk about the work your teams are doing
- Manage processes and use your technical expertise to continually improve the team and ensure your team achieves extraordinary results
- Work with other Directors 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 150 million active users in 19 million 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 Twitter, 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
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Sep 2021
$500m
SERIES H
Dec 2020
$100m
SERIES H
Total funding: $979.3m
Company benefits
- Comprehensive medical insurance including Health, Dental and Vision
- Mental health resources and quarterly wellness stipends
- 16+ paid holidays, 4 weeks of PTO + use-what-you-need sick days
- Paid parental leave (plus fertility, adoption and other family planning benefits)
- Flexible long-term work options (remote and hybrid)
- Volunteer time off
- A diverse slate of Employee Resource Groups
- Plus commuter contributions and other perks for office-based employees
Company values
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose
- Compassion
Company HQ
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA
Articles
Leadership
Jason Citron
(CEO)Started out as a programmer at Papaya Studio, Stormfront Studios and Doublefine Productions. Also founded OpenFeint, a global mobile social gaming company.
Worked as a Software Engineer at Casamba and then Kabam. Was Lead Software Engineer at GREE International, and founded social network Guildwork.com in 2009.
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