Head of Machine Learning & AI, Discord
$373-448k
Plus equity
Voice, video and text communication platform
Job no longer available
Voice, video and text communication platform
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$373-448k
Plus equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help friends and communities come together to hang out and explore their interests.
Role
Who you are
- 12+ years experience in applied machine learning
- 5+ years experience leading teams and have managed a team of teams
- Experience hiring and growing senior talent, from individual contributors to leaders
- Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences, with an ability to explain complex concepts in easy-to-understand ways and navigate ambiguous environments where problems are not well-defined (and evolve quickly)
- Experience being a creative and proactive “ML entrepreneur” - working with partners across the company to identify & prioritize high-value opportunities where ML can provide unique value
- Recent experience being a “hands-on” leader - we’re looking for someone who can work with senior executives (e.g. C-suite) to plan roadmaps & strategy, while also being effective in reviewing their team’s work, brainstorm on architecture, and so on
- Proficiency with the common industry data & ML tools - e.g. Python, Vertex, Argo
- A desire to work with amazing, passionate people who care about solving challenging problems to improve Discord
- Last but not least - a collaborative attitude and natural curiosity
Desirable
- Passion for Discord and gaming
- Direct experience applying ML to solve both offline & online problems, with a focus on building simple solutions quickly and optimizing over time
- Experience collaborating with data science, data engineering, and product engineering teams
- Experience collaborating with platform teams to set roadmaps that improve efficiency, cost, and scale
What the job involves
- Discord is looking for an experienced senior leader to lead ML/AI across the company
- ML improves how people experience Discord, keeps people safe, and improves our understanding of the ecosystem
- As Head of ML/AI, you will report directly to the VP of Data+ML and establish and drive a vision for how we use ML across the complete suite of company departments to transform our business
- If you're passionate about applied ML, impact, and leading an amazing team, read on
- Develop and implement a vision for how ML/AI is used across Discord
- Partner with team members, Product, and executives to identify opportunities to improve the user experience, keep users safe, improve internal operations, and improve our understanding of the Discord ecosystem
- Partner with our Data & ML Platform teams to identify opportunities to improve our infrastructure
- Evolve a world-class ML team of various functions that values impact, principled solutions, and innovation
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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