--- title: 'Software Engineer, Distributed Systems at Discord' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-distributed-systems-discord-san-francisco-m8e6aewnd2bn' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-10' --- # Software Engineer, Distributed Systems at Discord - **Company:** Discord - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Posted:** 2026-06-03 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord/jobs/8545663002 ## 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. The Realtime Infrastructure team is responsible for building and maintaining some of Discord’s highest scale and most critical services. Those systems are at the core of our text chat infrastructure and facilitate the dispatching of every update to our users sessions. This role will have a significant impact on Discord’s overall reliability and performance. It will also help our product teams build new features on top of our infrastructure. This team is small but critical, and its work has a direct impact on Discord's success and ability to scale. This role reports to the Senior Engineering Manager of Realtime Infrastructure. ## What You'll Be Doing - Build and operate large-scale, reliable and performant distributed systems. - Collaborate with product teams to create new features. - Ensure Discord “just works”. - Write code but also manage our infrastructure. - Work with a talented team of engineers who have built one of the largest communication platforms in the world. ## What you should have - 2+ years of experience writing and designing backend systems. - Experience solving complex distributed system problems. - Experience operating and maintaining critical tier 0 services. - Knowledge of monitoring and alerting best practices. - Familiar with open source software, and not afraid to dig into the source code of a library to find the answer you’re looking for. Bonus Points - Experience with Elixir or Rust. - Experience working with systems deployed in a cloud environment (GCP, AWS, etc.) - Knowledge of devops tools like Salt,Terraform or k8s. - You have built or contributed to open source projects. - You are a Discord power user and have built bots or apps interacting with our platform. Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties). Relocation assistance may be available. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $180,000 to $220,000 + equity + benefits. 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 US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits. 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. 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