Staff Software Engineer, Discord
Machine Learning (Safety)
$272-306k
+ Equity
Voice, video and text communication platform
Open for applications
Voice, video and text communication platform
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$272-306k
+ Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To help friends and communities come together to hang out and explore their interests.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of experience in ML engineering or applied ML roles
- 2+ years of experience applying ML in Trust & Safety to counter adversarial actors
- Strong coding skills in Python and fluency in ML frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow
- Proven experience building performant machine learning systems at scale and have driven the execution of large, impactful projects from ideation to production
- Ability to think from first principles, approaching complex problems with creativity, clear reasoning, and pragmatic solutions
- A growth mindset: seeking feedback, reflecting on decisions, and continuously improving
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with a history of partnering effectively across engineering, data science, legal, policy, and product teams
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related field (Physics, Math, Operations Research, etc.)
What the job involves
- We are seeking an accomplished and experienced Staff Machine Learning Engineer – Safety ML to join our dynamic team. As a technical lead of the Safety ML team, you will be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining our data and AI/ML infrastructure and services.
- You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, software engineers, MLEs and product managers, to deliver modern and cutting-edge solutions that improve safety on the platform. This role reports to the Senior Manager of Machine Learning, Safety
- Serve as the team’s technical lead and mentor, guiding ICs through design, experimentation, and implementation while raising the technical bar
- Define and drive the Safety ML team’s technical strategy and roadmap
- Set the bar in technical reviews, including code, design, and architecture, ensuring the team builds scalable, robust, and high-quality ML systems
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product, data science, policy, legal, and engineering partners to align on safety goals and deliver effective solutions
- Tackle the most complex and high-impact challenges in safety, including adversarial abuse, harmful content detection, and evolving threat vectors
- Develop cutting-edge safety techniques, applying state-of-the-art ML to detect and prevent harm while staying ahead of emerging abuse patterns
- Influence the company’s direction on safety, clearly communicating trade-offs and technical constraints to senior leadership and stakeholders
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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