Software Engineer, Distributed Systems
Discord · San Francisco Bay Area
Experience: 2+ years of experience
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.
The Realtime Infrastructure team is responsible for building and maintaining some of Discord’s highest scale and most critical services. Those systems are at the core of our text chat infrastructure and facilitate the dispatching of every update to our users sessions. This role will have a significant impact on Discord’s overall reliability and performance. It will also help our product teams build new features on top of our infrastructure. This team is small but critical, and its work has a direct impact on Discord's success and ability to scale. This role reports to the Senior Engineering Manager of Realtime Infrastructure.
What You'll Be Doing
• Build and operate large-scale, reliable and performant distributed systems.
• Collaborate with product teams to create new features.
• Ensure Discord “just works”.
• Write code but also manage our infrastructure.
• Work with a talented team of engineers who have built one of the largest communication platforms in the world.
What you should have
• 2+ years of experience writing and designing backend systems.
• Experience solving complex distributed system problems.
• Experience operating and maintaining critical tier 0 services.
• Knowledge of monitoring and alerting best practices.
• Familiar with open source software, and not afraid to dig into the source code of a library to find the answer you’re looking for.
Bonus Points
• Experience with Elixir or Rust.
• Experience working with systems deployed in a cloud environment (GCP, AWS, etc.)
• Knowledge of devops tools like Salt,Terraform or k8s.
• 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.
T he US base salary range for this full-time position is
The Realtime Infrastructure team is responsible for building and maintaining some of Discord’s highest scale and most critical services. Those systems are at the core of our text chat infrastructure and facilitate the dispatching of every update to our users sessions. This role will have a significant impact on Discord’s overall reliability and performance. It will also help our product teams build new features on top of our infrastructure. This team is small but critical, and its work has a direct impact on Discord's success and ability to scale. This role reports to the Senior Engineering Manager of Realtime Infrastructure.
What You'll Be Doing
• Build and operate large-scale, reliable and performant distributed systems.
• Collaborate with product teams to create new features.
• Ensure Discord “just works”.
• Write code but also manage our infrastructure.
• Work with a talented team of engineers who have built one of the largest communication platforms in the world.
What you should have
• 2+ years of experience writing and designing backend systems.
• Experience solving complex distributed system problems.
• Experience operating and maintaining critical tier 0 services.
• Knowledge of monitoring and alerting best practices.
• Familiar with open source software, and not afraid to dig into the source code of a library to find the answer you’re looking for.
Bonus Points
• Experience with Elixir or Rust.
• Experience working with systems deployed in a cloud environment (GCP, AWS, etc.)
• Knowledge of devops tools like Salt,Terraform or k8s.
• 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.
T he US base salary range for this full-time position is
60,000 to
00,000 + 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.
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Public study materials
- Python (Python)
- Python Fundamentals · basic
- Control Flow · basic
- Strings · basic
- Collections / Data Structures · basic
- Functions · basic
- Modules and Packages · basic
- File Handling · basic
- Exception Handling · basic
- Object-Oriented Programming (OOP · medium
- Advanced Python Concepts · advance
- Functional Programming · advance
- Multithreading & Multiprocessing · advance
- Async Programming · advance
- System Architecture (System Architecture)
- Fundamentals of System Architecture · basic
- Distributed System Basics · basic
- System Reliability Concepts · basic
- Scaling Concepts · basic
- Networking Basics · basic
- Web Communication · basic
- API Communication · basic
- Proxy & Delivery Systems · basic
- Web Architecture Basics · basic
- Rendering Architectures · basic
- Frontend Advanced Concepts · basic
- Message Queue Basics · medium
- What is Load Balancer · medium
- Load Balancing Algorithms · medium
- API Design Basics · medium
- API Protection · medium
- Authentication Basics · medium
- Security Tokens · medium
- Security Threats · medium
- Encryption & Security · medium
- SQL Database Basics · medium
- SQL Scaling Concepts · medium
- NoSQL Databases · medium
- Database Optimization · medium
- Replication Strategies · medium
- Caching Basics · medium
- Cache Storage Systems · medium
- Cache Strategies · medium
- Event-Driven Systems · advance
- Queue Reliability · advance
- Microservices Basics · advance
- Microservice Communication · advance
- Distributed Transactions · advance
- DevOps Basics · advance
- Automation Tools · advance
- Deployment Strategies · advance
- Monitoring Basics · advance
- Monitoring Tools · advance
- Distributed System Concepts · advance
- Distributed Algorithms · advance
- Express.js — Web APIs & middleware (expressjs)
- Application setup · basic
- Routing deep dive · basic
- 1. MVC / Layered Architecture · medium
- Validation · medium
- File uploads · medium
- Sessions & auth (stateful) · medium
- Passport & strategies · medium
- Templating & SSR · medium
- WebSockets & SSE · medium
- Security middleware · advance
- Reverse proxies & trust · advance
- Performance · advance
- API design & versioning · advance
- Testing with Supertest · advance
- GraphQL & tRPC (overview) · advance
- Deployment checklist · advance
- Middlewares · basic
- Request & Response · basic
- System Designing (System Designing)
- Day-1 : What is system Designing ? · basic
- Day-2 : Vertical vs. Horizontal Scaling · basic
- Day-3:How to do vertical scaling ? · basic
- Day4:How to do horizaontal scaling ? · basic
- Day:5TCP vs UDP · basic
- Day6:IP & DNS · basic
- Day7:Client-Server Model · basic
- Day8:HTTP & HTTPS · basic
- Databases (SQL vs NoSQL) · medium
- Caching · medium
- Day9:Latency & Throughput · basic
- Load Balancing · medium
- Indexes & Query Optimization · medium
- CDN · medium
- Proxies · medium
- Message Queues · medium
- Horizontal vs Vertical Scaling · medium
- Database Replication · advance
- Database Sharding · advance
- Consistent Hashing · advance
- CAP Theorem · advance
- Rate Limiting · advance
- Service Discovery · advance
- Event-Driven Architecture · advance
- API Gateway · advance
- Distributed Consensus · expert
- Microservices · expert
- Observability · expert
- Idempotency · expert
- PACELC Theorem · expert
- Two-Phase Commit · expert
- Back-of-Envelope Estimation · expert
- Designing for Failure · expert
- SQL (SQL)
- SQL Fundamentals · basic
- Database Operations · basic
- Table Operations · basic
- CRUD Operations · basic
- Filtering & Operators · basic
- SQL Functions · basic
- GROUPING Data · basic
- Joins · medium
- Constraints · basic
- Subqueries · medium
- Set Operators · medium
- Views · medium
- Indexes · medium
- Normalization · advance
- Transactions · advance
- Stored Procedures & Functions · advance
- Triggers · advance
- Advanced SQL · advance
- Query Optimization · advance
- Database Design · advance
- SQL Security · advance
- Backup & Recovery · advance
- Questions · interview questions
- Django (Django)
- What is Django · basic
- Installing Django · basic
- Features of Django · basic
- MVT Architecture · basic
- Django vs Flask · basic
- Creating Project & Creating App · basic
- Django Project Structure · basic
- URL Routing · basic
- Views · basic
- Templates · basic
- Static & Media Files · medium
- Models · medium
- ORM (Object Relational Mapping) · medium
- Model Relationships · medium
- Migrations · medium
- Django Admin · medium
- Forms · medium
- Authentication · medium
- Authorization · medium
- Middleware · medium
- Signals · medium
- Class Based Views Deep Dive · advance
- Generic Views · advance
- File Handling · advance
- Django REST Framework (DRF) · advance
- Advanced ORM · advance
- Caching · advance
- Asynchronous Django · advance
- Background Tasks · advance
- Interview Questions · interview-questions
- JavaScript (JavaScript)
- JS Introduction · basic
- Variables & Data Types · basic
- Operators · basic
- Control Flow · basic
- Functions · basic
- Scope & Execution · basic
- Closures · basic
- Objects · basic
- Arrays · basic
- Strings · basic
- DOM Manipulation · basic
- Browser APIs · medium
- Asynchronous JavaScript · medium
- Fetch & APIs · medium
- ES6+ Features · medium
- OOP in JavaScript · medium
- Prototype & Inheritance · advance
- Advanced Functions · advance
- Memory Management · advance
- Error Handling · advance
- Modules · advance
- Advanced Async Concepts · advance
- Functional Programming · advance
- JavaScript Internals · advance
- Performance Optimization · advance
- Angular (Angular)
- Angular Fundamentals · basic
- Project Structure · basic
- Components & Templates · basic
- Data Binding · basic
- Directives · basic
- Pipes · basic
- Component Communication · basic
- Lifecycle Hooks · basic
- Routing Basics · basic
- Routing · basic
- API Calls · basic
- Forms · medium
- Routing · medium
- Services & Dependency Injection · medium
- RxJS & Observables · medium
- Authentication & Security · medium
- Component Interaction · medium
- State Management Basics · medium
- Error Handiling · medium
- Perfomance Basic · medium
- Real World Features · medium
- Advanced Angular Architecture · advance
- Change Detection · advance
- Advanced RxJS · advance
- State Management · advance
- Dynamic Rendering · advance
- Perfomance Optimization · advance
- Modern Angular · advance
- STAR (Situation, Task, Action, and Result) (Situation Based Questions)
- Node.js — Server-side JavaScript (nodejs)
- Getting started · basic
- JavaScript on the server · basic
- CommonJS modules · basic
- ES modules (ESM) · basic
- npm & package management · basic
- Asynchronous JavaScript in Node · basic
- The event loop · basic
- Essential core utilities · basic
- process & configuration · basic
- File system basics · basic
- HTTP & HTTPS servers · medium
- Streams · medium
- Events & EventEmitter · medium
- Advanced filesystem · medium
- crypto · medium
- Compression & encoding · medium
- Child processes · medium
- net, dgram & DNS · medium
- readline, timers & scheduling · medium
- Testing & diagnostics (intro) · medium
- Worker threads · advance
- cluster & multi-process scaling · advance
- Performance & tuning · advance
- Debugging & observability · advance
- Security hardening · advance
- Native addons & N-API · advance
- Architecture patterns · advance
- Graceful shutdown · advance
- 100 Questions · interview questions
- MongoDB — Documents & data modeling (MongoDB)
- Introduction · basic
- Shell, Compass & tools · basic
- Databases & collections · basic
- CRUD operations · basic
- Indexes deep dive · medium
- Explain plans & performance · medium
- Aggregation framework · medium
- Schema design patterns · medium
- Mongoose basics · medium
- Mongoose advanced · medium
- Drivers & connection · medium
- Operators for updates & arrays · medium
- Replication & read preferences · advance
- Write concern & read concern · advance
- Multi-document transactions · advance
- Change streams · advance
- Sharding (overview) · advance
- Atlas Search & full-text · advance
- GridFS & large files · advance
- Backup, restore & ops · advance
- AWS Crash Course (AWS)
- What is Cloud ? · basic
- What is AWS ? · basic
- If not cloud ? · basic
- Cloud Computing · basic
- AWS Pricing · basic
- AWS Shared Responsibility Model · basic
- AWS Management Console · basic
- AWS SDKs · basic
- AWS IAM · medium
- Users, Groups, Roles · medium
- Policies · medium
- AWS Organizations · medium
- AWS Cognito · medium
- AWS Directory Service · medium
- AWS KMS (Key Management Service) · medium
- AWS Secrets Manager · medium
- AWS Shield · medium
- AWS WAF · medium
- AWS Inspector · medium
- AWS GuardDuty · medium
- EC2 · advance
- Launching EC2 Instances · advance
- EBS Volumes · advance
- Security Groups · advance
- Key Pairs · advance
- Elastic IP · advance
- User Data Scripts · advance
- Auto Scaling · advance
- Load Balancers · advance
- ALB · advance
- NLB · advance
- Serverless Compute ,AWS Lambda, Lambda Layers · advance
- Event-Driven Architecture · advance
- ECS · advance
- EKS · advance
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.