Discord

Software Engineer, Safety Processing

Discord$160K — $220K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 3+ years of software engineering experience in backend services or infrastructure (Python or similar)
  • Experience with building scalable distributed systems in GCP or AWS
  • Strong debugging skills in complex, multi-service codebases
  • Excellent collaboration and communication skills, especially with cross-functional teams

Responsibilities

  • Scale and improve content review and detection for harmful content on Discord
  • Build and maintain large-scale production systems, participating in on-call rotations
  • Apply an adversarial mindset to anticipate security and scalability issues
  • Collaborate with Trust & Safety, ML, Policy, and product teams to deliver effective solutions

Benefits

  • Open-source contributions to industry-wide safety tools like Osprey
  • Work in a fast-paced environment focused on real security challenges
  • Collaborate with diverse teams across the company to make impactful changes
Full Job Description
Keeping our platform safe requires infrastructure that is accurate, scalable, and fair and the engineering challenges that come with that are genuinely hard. Our Safety Engineering teams build and operate the systems that power content moderation, enforcement, and safety signal processing at scale.

Our team developed Osprey, the open-source investigation and incident response tool that allows safety teams to understand what is happening on their platforms and take actions at scale. Osprey has since been open-sourced and donated to ROOST, reflecting our commitment to industry-wide safety improvements.

We're looking for a Software Engineer who enjoys solving complex problems and contributing to critical infrastructure from design through post-launch iteration.
What You'll Be Doing
  • Scale and Improve Discord's ability to review and detect harmful content on the platform
  • Build and maintain production systems that operate at massive scale, participating in on-call rotations
  • Apply an adversarial mindset to your work - thinking through security, abuse scenarios, edge cases, and scalability concerns
  • Collaborate closely with Trust & Safety, ML, Policy, and product teams to understand requirements and deliver effective solutions
What You Should Have
  • 3+ years of professional software engineering experience focused on backend services and/or infrastructure in Python (or similar)
  • Experience building and operating distributed systems and production services at scale such as GCP or AWS
  • Debugging skills and ability to navigate complex, multi-service codebases
  • Excellent collaboration and communication skills, including experience working with cross-functional partners
Bonus Points
  • Experience with content moderation, trust & safety, or related problem domains
  • Experience with observability tooling, metrics, and monitoring systems at scale
  • A strong passion for Discord and making online communities safer

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $160,000 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.

About Discord

Discord is a communication platform designed for creating communities. The platform allows users to create and join servers, which are essentially chat rooms, and communicate with other users via text, voice, and video. Discord was founded in 2015 and has grown rapidly, with over 250 million registered users as of 2019. The company has raised $480 million in total funding.
Learn more about Discord
Size
800 employees
Industry
Founded
2012

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