Staff Software Engineer - Safety Experience

About the role

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.

Responsibilities

• 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.

Requirements

• 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.
• Prominent 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.
• Experience utilizing AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor to supercharge dev workflows.

Qualifications

• 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.

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.

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.
• Prominent 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.
• Experience utilizing AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor to supercharge dev workflows.

Pay

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $248,000 to $310,000 + equity + benefits.

Schedule

This position is US-based only. We are seeking candidates located in the Los Angeles area (Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, or Ventura Counties) or 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 to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Benefits

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including health insurance, retirement savings plans, and paid time off.

Why Discord?

Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We're a multiplatform, multigeneration, 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!