Staff Software Engineer, Media Infrastructure – Remote

📍 Location: Remote (San Francisco, CA)

💰 Salary Range: $223,000 - $245,000 + equity + benefits

🕒 Job Type: Full-time

About Discord

With over 200 million monthly users, Discord is a platform where people connect, communicate, and play games together. More than 90% of our users engage in gaming, spending over 1.5 billion hours each month on our platform. Our mission is to make it easier, more fun, and more immersive for people to hang out before, during, and after gaming sessions.

About the Role

The Media Infrastructure team at Discord is responsible for managing the storage, processing, and delivery of over 100PB of user-generated media. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will play a key role in shaping the architecture, scalability, and efficiency of our media systems. Your work will directly impact hundreds of millions of users, optimizing media experiences for everything from GIFs and emojis to video streaming.

What Makes This Role Exciting

🚀 High-Impact Engineering – Work on core media systems that millions of users interact with daily.

🎥 Innovate in Media Processing – Solve complex problems in video encoding, playback performance, and storage optimization.

💰 Drive Cost & Performance Improvements – Help reduce operational costs while enhancing user engagement.

🔧 Architect Large-Scale Systems – Design and implement scalable, high-performance media infrastructure.

🤝 Collaborate Across Teams – Work closely with product, design, and engineering to build innovative features.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Architect & Scale media storage and delivery solutions for hundreds of millions of users.
• Optimize Media Performance – Ensure systems are fast, reliable, and efficient for seamless user experiences.
• Lead Development Efforts – Design, implement, and improve media ingestion, processing, and delivery pipelines.
• Enhance Video Capabilities – Solve video encoding, compression, and playback challenges across multiple platforms.
• Improve API & Data Infrastructure – Work with GraphQL, REST, gRPC, Redis, and distributed caching to enhance media functionality.
• Collaborate & Mentor – Provide technical leadership, code reviews, and mentorship to a team of talented engineers.
• Monitor & Measure Impact – Utilize data-driven insights to improve media infrastructure and user experience.
• Innovate with Emerging Tech – Leverage CDN technologies, cloud services, and advanced media processing techniques.

Who You Are

✅ Experienced Engineer: 7+ years in backend development, with 10+ years of hands-on software development experience in Rust, C++, or Python.

✅ Media Infrastructure Expert: Deep understanding of video encoding, image processing, and scalable media architectures.

✅ Distributed Systems Specialist: Experience managing high-traffic, large-scale infrastructure handling 1M+ QPS.

✅ API & Storage Guru: Expertise in GraphQL, REST, gRPC, Redis, and distributed caching.

✅ Video & Image Processing Pro: Knowledge of H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP9, AV1, WebP, progressive JPEGs, and streaming protocols (HLS, MPEG-DASH, MP4).

✅ Cloud & CDN Savvy: Experience working with Fastly, Cloudflare, CloudFront, and cloud platforms like AWS or GCP.

✅ Team Player & Leader: Strong organizational skills, ability to mentor, and drive cross-team collaboration.

Bonus Points

🎥 Experience with FFmpeg, GPAC, React Native Video, Exoplayer.

📱 Expertise in iOS/Android media transcoding & playback.

☁️ Familiarity with Terraform, Salt, or cloud DevOps tools.

💡 Contributions to open-source projects.

🎮 Passion for Discord, gaming, and community-driven platforms.

What We Offer

💰 Competitive salary + equity + benefits

🌍 Remote-friendly work environment

📚 Professional development & career growth

🛡️ Comprehensive health & wellness benefits

🎮 A chance to shape the future of media on Discord

Why Join Discord?

We believe gaming is about connection and shared experiences. Whether you're grinding for diamond rank, watching streams with friends, or sharing memes, Discord is where millions come to build friendships and communities.

Are you ready to help us redefine the future of media infrastructure? 🚀

📩 Apply now and be part of our mission!