---
title: 'Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Growth) at Discord'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-machine-learning-engineer-growth-discord-san-francisco-bf4hnzxvz9wa'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-05'
---

# Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Growth) at Discord

- **Company:** Discord
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Compensation:** $220k–$275k
- **Posted:** 2026-11-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-05
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord/jobs/8910013002

## Job description

Discord has a highly engaged community of millions of daily active users who use the platform for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does: play video games. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming, and we are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to hang out before, during, and after playing games.

We're looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join our Engagement ML team, working as part of the cross-functional Onboarding squad in Discord's Growth organization. You'll design and build 0→1 end-to-end ML solutions that help brand-new users find their place on Discord: the servers, people, and content that turn a first session into a long-term connection to the product. If this excites you, keep reading!

## What You'll Be Doing

- Design, build, and scale the recommendation systems that connect new users to communities and content, from candidate generation and ranking through to online serving.
- Solve cold-start personalization for users with little or no history on Discord, turning the limited signals available into recommendations for servers, communities, and content.
- Build and deploy ML models that lift new-user retention, combining purpose-built approaches with shared foundations such as user and server embeddings.
- Collaborate cross-functionally to shape the Onboarding roadmap, balancing fast learning experiments with the long-term complexity and scalability of the systems behind them

## What you should have

- 5+ years of experience in Machine Learning, Data Science, or Applied Science, with a track record of shipping recommendation or personalization systems end to end.
- Hands-on experience building modern recommendation systems: retrieval and ranking pipelines, embedding-based retrieval (e.g. two-tower models), and deep learning models (e.g. transformers, multi-task learning).
- Strong proficiency in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.
- Experience taking ML systems from ideation to production at scale, including feature pipelines, model serving, monitoring, and online experimentation.
- Strong product intuition and a passion for building 0→1 ML applications grounded in user feedback and real-world impact.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, able to serve as the ML voice on a cross-functional squad and keep stakeholders aligned on trade-offs, priorities, and progress.
- The ability to thrive in ambiguous environments, energized by tackling open-ended, technically challenging problems

Bonus Points If You Have:

- Experience with cold-start or new-user personalization, onboarding flows, or preference elicitation.
- Built user representation models or applied social-graph signals to recommendation problems.
- Worked on growth or engagement problems for consumer products, such as community and content recommendations, user activation, or retention.
- Experience with large-scale recommendation systems, data infrastructure, distributed computing, and vector search.

The base salary range for this full-time position is listed below. This position will also be eligible for equity and benefits. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance; a 401(k) plan; life and disability insurance; paid time off; and paid parental leave. Our salary ranges are determined by role and level. Within the range, individual pay is determined by additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Please note that the compensation details listed in role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits. Applications for this role are accepted on an ongoing basis.

Base Salary $220,000—$275,000 USD

Why Discord?

Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We're a multiplatform, multigenerational and multiplayer platform that helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests, and helps developers build and grow their businesses. We believe games give us a way to have fun with our favorite people, whether listening to music together or grinding in competitive matches for diamond rank. Join us in our mission! Your future is just a click away!

Discord is committed to inclusion and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. We want you to feel set up for success, so if you are in need of reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.

Please see our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy for details regarding Discord’s collection and usage of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking [HERE.](https://discord.com/terms/applicant-candidate-privacy-policy)

## About Discord

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Discord is a voice, video, and text communication platform designed to help friends and communities hang out and play games together.
- **Entity Type**: Private (funding stage not disclosed in available sources)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2015
- **Founders**: Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Gaming communication and social platform
- **Target customers**: B2C – gamers, gaming communities, and friends; also B2B via in-game chat integrations
- **Mission or purpose**: To be the best place to talk before, during, and after playing games, enabling meaningful connections around the joy of gaming.

## Products & Services
- **Discord Platform (Voice, Video, Text)**: A free-to-use app for 1:1 DMs, group DMs, and Servers where users can communicate in real-time. Features include high-quality streaming, in-game overlay, Soundboard, Voice Messages, and Activities (playable games inside Discord).
- **Discord API & SDK**: Allows developers to build bots, integrations, and in-game chat powered by Discord (e.g., used by Pax Dei and Omega Strikers).
- **Discord App Launcher**: Lets users enjoy Activities and apps directly within Discord.
- **Rich Presence API**: Enables games to display player activity on Discord profiles.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (private company)
- **Key Metric**: 90+ million daily active users (DAU) as of Q4 2025 (internal data)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not detailed in provided sources; known from general knowledge includes Greylock, Index Ventures, Accel, and Tencent (but not cited here)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 90%+ of Discord users play video games; ~40% start a game within an hour of using Discord.
  - Expanded in-game voice chat support to PS5 and PC.
  - Launched in-game overlay, Soundboard, Voice Messages, and Activities.
  - New CEO Humam Sakhnini (former Activision Blizzard/King executive) appointed in Spring 2025.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Gaming-first focus**: Deep integration with gaming ecosystems (console, PC, mobile) and features built specifically for gamers.
- **Massive, engaged user base**: 90M+ DAU with high daily activity and strong community stickiness.
- **Platform lock-in**: Users build social networks within Discord servers, making switching costly.
- **Developer ecosystem**: API and SDK power hundreds of thousands of apps and in-game chat integrations.

## Strategic Focus
- Continue making Discord the most reliable and feature-rich platform for gaming conversations.
- Expand in-game voice/text chat partnerships (e.g., Pax Dei, Omega Strikers).
- Invest in Safety platform (dedicated engineering teams, Safety Processing, Enforce, Experience).
- Grow revenue through monetization features (Nitro subscriptions, game sales, and ads – hinted by job postings for "Revenue" teams).

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Emphasizes seven principles: Strive for Excellence, Cultivate Belonging, Deliver for Customers, Embrace the Brutal Facts, Progress Over Perfection, Debate/Decide/Commit, Surprise & Delight. Employees use Discord daily and share a passion for gaming.
- **Work model**: Flexible – in-person at San Francisco HQ, remote, or hybrid. "Great work can happen anywhere."
- **Benefits** (US full-time):
  - Competitive compensation with equity, 401k matching.
  - 4 weeks PTO, 16 paid holidays (including winter break), flexible sick time (including mental health days).
  - 12+ weeks parental leave, fertility/adoption/surrogacy benefits.
  - Medical, dental, vision, reproductive, gender-affirming, and mental healthcare.
  - $375 quarterly wellness stipend.
  - $1,000/year donation matching, 2 volunteer days off.
- **Engineering culture**: Strong focus on data, safety, and infrastructure; managers go through leadership training; many open roles in Core Tech, Safety, Data, and Machine Learning.

## Sources
1. [discord.com/careers](https://discord.com/careers)
2. [discord.com/company](https://discord.com/company)
3. [discord.com/blog/the-seven-principles-of-working-at-discord](https://discord.com/blog/the-seven-principles-of-working-at-discord)
4. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord)
5. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord/jobs/8350416002](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord/jobs/8350416002)

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