Principal Software Engineer - Infrastructure

About This RoleAI processing…

Key Responsibilities

• 1
  Lead Discord's most critical infrastructure initiatives.
• 2
  Define and drive the technical vision and multi-year roadmap for Infrastructure, aligning teams around shared architectural principles.
• 3
  Partner with leadership across the company to ensure infrastructure capabilities enable product innovation.
• 4
  Design systems that balance reliability, cost-efficiency, and scalability.
• 5
  Mentor and grow senior engineers across multiple teams, raising the technical bar organization-wide.
• 6
  Represent Discord's engineering culture externally through blog posts, conference talks, and open source contributions.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Experience architecting complex infrastructure serving hundreds of millions of users with strict uptime requirements.
• Deep expertise in backend systems, databases, and the operational realities of running systems at scale.
• Ability to navigate significant ambiguity and make sound technical decisions that hold up over time.
• Experience influencing technical direction across many teams without direct authority.
• Strong communication skills and you can articulate complex technical concepts to any audience and build alignment around your vision.
• A passion for mentorship and raising the capabilities of engineers around you.

Perks & Benefits