Director of Engineering, Security Operations

Discord is used by over 200 million people every month for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does on our platform:
play video games. Over 90% of our users play games, spending a combined 1.5 billion hours playing thousands of unique titles on Discord each month. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to talk and hang out before, during, and after playing games.

Discord is looking for an experienced, technical, and mission-driven Director of Security Operations to lead our Detection & Response, Enterprise Security, Identity & Access Management, and Cyber Threat Intelligence teams. You will report directly to the Head of Security and will be instrumental in defining and executing our security operations strategy while building world‑class teams that protect Discord and our users.

This role owns four security domains and requires a leader who can operate with minimal direction, drive long‑term strategy, and deliver results across complex, high‑stakes environments. As a senior member of the Security leadership team, you'll serve as a key succession candidate for greater organizational responsibility.

This is a technical leadership role. Security at Discord is an engineering discipline, and we expect leaders at all levels to stay close to the work. You won't be writing production code daily, but you should be comfortable reading code, writing scripts, and digging into technical details when the situation demands it.

• Define and own the unified security operations strategy spanning Detection & Response, IT Security, Identity & Access Management, and Cyber Threat Intelligence—ensuring alignment across domains while respecting their distinct missions
• Formalize and expand Discord's Cyber Threat Intelligence function: mature existing capabilities into a structured program, build the team, establish collection and production processes, and integrate intelligence into security operations and business decision‑making
• Own the identity and access management strategy across Discord—covering corporate systems, cloud infrastructure environments, and the policies and controls that govern access to both
• Collaborate with Security, Engineering, IT, Legal, Trust & Safety, and executive leadership to align security operations priorities with company goals
• Own accountability for security operations outcomes across all four domains, ensuring success criteria are effectively measured and achieved

• Maintain enough technical depth across your domains to effectively evaluate proposals, challenge assumptions, and hold teams accountable for sound technical decisions
• Get hands‑on when needed: review detection logic, dig into incident forensics, audit IAM configurations, or prototype solutions when it accelerates the team
• Drive engineering excellence across security operations—ensuring teams build reliable, automated, and scalable solutions rather than manual processes that don't scale

• Build, lead, and scale a high‑performing organization of security professionals across four functions with varying maturity levels, each requiring different leadership approaches
• Design a healthy organization structure that balances operational excellence, innovation, and speed
• Drive the full talent lifecycle: hiring, culture‑building, growth, performance management, and retention
• Grow and develop managers who can effectively own their domains with increasing autonomy; maintain a clear succession plan and build bench strength across the organization
• Establish operational rhythms, cross‑team rituals, and shared practices that create cohesion while preserving domain expertise

• Partner with Security Engineering leadership to ensure detection, response, IAM, and threat intelligence capabilities are informed by and integrated with product and infrastructure security efforts
• Drive alignment between IT Security, IAM, and enterprise technology decisions—ensuring security is embedded in how Discord operates, not bolted on
• Ensure threat…