Senior Software Engineer - Platform Infrastructure

Responsibilities

• Ensure the reliable and efficient operation of critical systems that serve millions of users daily.
• Design, develop, and scale distributed systems from the ground up.
• Write code and manage infrastructure to support high-performance services.
• Enable dozens of teams to deploy code to production quickly and safely.
• Use and enhance observability tools to troubleshoot complex issues.
• Instrument services to establish robust data collection and monitoring pipelines.
• Coach and mentor other engineers, enabling their development.
• Become a vital part of a small team of talented engineers passionate about keeping Discord running smoothly.

• 5+ years of experience designing and developing backend systems.
• Experience scaling distributed systems.
• Experience operating complex services in a production environment.
• Familiarity with open source software, and the ability to dig into a library's source code to find the answer you’re looking for.
• Confidence in making tradeoffs when leading projects to ensure constant progress.

• Experience with Python or Rust.
• Experience deploying and managing containerized applications with Kubernetes.
• Experience with Google Pub/Sub or other message queue systems.
• A deep understanding of Python runtime internals or the gevent library.
• Experience utilizing AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor to supercharge dev workflows.
• 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 $196,000 to $220,500 + equity + benefits.

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.