--- title: 'Staff Software Engineer, Safety Experience at Discord' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-safety-experience-discord-san-francisco-r9k25m01vcj9' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-10' --- # Staff Software Engineer, Safety Experience at Discord - **Company:** Discord - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Posted:** 2026-08-26 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10 - **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/discord/jobs/8727410002 ## 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. As a Staff Engineer on the Safety Experience team, you'll be a technical leader who autonomously delivers real business impact on large, ambiguous projects. You'll design and build product features and systems that prevent harmful activities at scale while ensuring regulatory compliance. This role requires both deep technical expertise and the ability to be a force multiplier for your team: driving engineering excellence, making solid technical decisions, and remaining a top code contributor. You'll work cross-functionally to shape the technical direction of safety initiatives that protect hundreds of millions of Discord users. This role reports to the Engineering Manager of Safety Experience. ## What You'll Be Doing - Lead development of high-impact, user-facing safety products that deliver measurable results for Discord's users. - Own complex, multi-milestone projects end-to-end, identifying optimal solutions, navigating ambiguity and making independent technical decisions. - Design, build, and deploy robust production APIs, backend services, and data pipelines that enable safety features to scale efficiently. - Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Design, Policy, Data Science, ML, Legal, and Trust & Safety Operations to create solutions that are both impactful and lovable. - Drive engineering excellence by mentoring others and guiding the team through architectural challenges to ensure long-term scalability. - Respond rapidly to the ever-evolving abuse and compliance landscape with strategic thinking and swift execution. ## What you should have - 8+ years of relevant industry experience, with demonstrated ability to deliver high-quality, high-impact work on complex projects. - Strong expertise in Python and back-end API frameworks (Flask, Django). - Strong front-end development skills with JavaScript (React, TypeScript) for web and mobile platforms. - Significant experience in the Safety or Anti-Abuse domain with deep understanding of trust and safety challenges at scale. - Proven track record of owning large projects end-to-end with varying degrees of ambiguity, breaking down work into well-prioritized milestones with clear dependencies. - Demonstrated ability to make independent technical decisions that balance short-term needs with long-term sustainability and scalability. - Experience driving engineering excellence: setting quality standards, conducting thorough code reviews, and applying an adversarial mindset to identify security, performance, and scaling issues. - Strong communication skills with ability to provide high-quality technical feedback, drive alignment across stakeholders, and facilitate productive debates that lead to clear decisions. - Experience using metrics and dashboards (e.g., Datadog, Mode, Faros) to make data-driven decisions and monitor system health. - Ability to be a force multiplier for your team by mentoring others, establishing best practices, and helping teammates grow their skills. - Experience utilizing AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor to supercharge dev workflows Bonus Points - Familiarity with databases such as Cassandra, Postgres, or ScyllaDB. - Experience with real-time streaming systems like Kafka or Pub-Sub. - Track record of building and operating native mobile features on iOS and Android. - Experience designing and implementing monitoring strategies and on-call/on-point processes for production systems. - Knowledge of lower-level languages such as Go, Rust, or Elixir. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $248,000 to $310,000 + 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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