Communication, Social Media, Gaming

Senior Machine Learning Engineer (Growth)

San Francisco, CAOnsiteFull TimeSenior$220,000–$275,000 /yrPosted 2 days agoVisa sponsorship available

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Required skills

brand-new users
servers
people
content
first session
long-term connection
recommendation systems
candidate generation
ranking
online serving

Nice to have

onboarding flows
preference elicitation
user representation models
social-graph signals
growth
engagement

Role summary

Discord is seeking a Senior Machine Learning Engineer for its Growth organization, specifically within the Onboarding squad. This role focuses on designing and building end-to-end ML solutions to help new users connect with Discord's servers, people, and content. Responsibilities include developing recommendation systems for candidate generation and ranking, solving cold-start personalization problems, and building models to enhance new-user retention. The ideal candidate has 5+ years of experience in ML/Data Science, with hands-on experience in modern recommendation systems, Python, and ML frameworks like PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow. Experience with MLOps, including feature pipelines, model serving, monitoring, and online experimentation, is crucial. The role involves cross-functional collaboration to shape the onboarding roadmap and balance experiments with system scalability. Bonus points for experience with cold-start personalization, user representation models, growth/engagement problems, and large-scale data infrastructure.

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.

We're looking for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer to join our Engagement ML team, working as part of the cross-functional Onboarding squad in Discord's Growth organization. You'll design and build 0→1 end-to-end ML solutions that help brand-new users find their place on Discord: the servers, people, and content that turn a first session into a long-term connection to the product. If this excites you, keep reading!

What You'll Be Doing

Design, build, and scale the recommendation systems that connect new users to communities and content, from candidate generation and ranking through to online serving.

Solve cold-start personalization for users with little or no history on Discord, turning the limited signals available into recommendations for servers, communities, and content.

Build and deploy ML models that lift new-user retention, combining purpose-built approaches with shared foundations such as user and server embeddings.

Collaborate cross-functionally to shape the Onboarding roadmap, balancing fast learning experiments with the long-term complexity and scalability of the systems behind them

What you should have

5+ years of experience in Machine Learning, Data Science, or Applied Science, with a track record of shipping recommendation or personalization systems end to end.

Hands-on experience building modern recommendation systems: retrieval and ranking pipelines, embedding-based retrieval (e.g. two-tower models), and deep learning models (e.g. transformers, multi-task learning).

Strong proficiency in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch, JAX, or TensorFlow.

Experience taking ML systems from ideation to production at scale, including feature pipelines, model serving, monitoring, and online experimentation.

Strong product intuition and a passion for building 0→1 ML applications grounded in user feedback and real-world impact.

Excellent communication and collaboration skills, able to serve as the ML voice on a cross-functional squad and keep stakeholders aligned on trade-offs, priorities, and progress.

The ability to thrive in ambiguous environments, energized by tackling open-ended, technically challenging problems

Bonus Points If You Have:

Experience with cold-start or new-user personalization, onboarding flows, or preference elicitation.

Built user representation models or applied social-graph signals to recommendation problems.

Worked on growth or engagement problems for consumer products, such as community and content recommendations, user activation, or retention.

Experience with large-scale recommendation systems, data infrastructure, distributed computing, and vector search.

The base salary range for this full-time position is listed below. This position will also be eligible for equity and benefits. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance; a 401(k) plan; life and disability insurance; paid time off; and paid parental leave. 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 role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits. Applications for this role are accepted on an ongoing basis.

Base Salary$220,000—$275,000 USD

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.

Sample Discord interview questions

1
Design a distributed task scheduler.
system designmedium
2
Implement a system for live processing of customer reviews and feedback.
system designmedium
3
Build a Discord-like Chat Server
system designhard
4
Find the minimum path sum from top-left to bottom-right in a grid. Input: grid = [[1,2,3],[4,5,6]] Output: 12 Explanation: The optimal path moves along 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 6, resulting in a minimum accumulated sum of 12.
codingmedium

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