Engineering Manager - Database Infrastructure

Discord is used by over 200 million people every month for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does on our platform: play video games. Over 90% of our users play games, spending a combined 1.5 billion hours playing thousands of unique titles on Discord each month. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to talk and hang out before, during, and after playing games.

Our Database Infrastructure team is the backbone of Discord's live user data. Responsible for all databases and data services, this team ensures that everything from messages to user profiles is stored durably and reliably for our 200M+ active users. As Engineering Manager of the Database Infrastructure, you'll lead a team of exceptional engineers who build and maintain these mission-critical systems. You'll oversee the operation and scaling of our databases, while also providing essential storage primitives that power innovation across our engineering organization. This role places you at the helm of some of Discord's most vital infrastructure, directly impacting the experience of hundreds of millions of users worldwide.

You will:

• Guide the technical vision and roadmap for Discord's Database Infrastructure.
• Grow and manage a team of talented infrastructure engineers.
• Ensure Discord just works by building and operating reliable and efficient infrastructure.
• Work with leaders from all over the company to build new features.

You have:

• 2+ years of experience as an Engineering Manager.
• Extensive experience managing large databases at scale and in complex environments.
• Worked with high scale distributed systems used by tens or hundreds of millions of users.
• Collaborate effectively with a variety of teams across multiple functions.
• Excel in undefined environments and get excited about finding pragmatic solutions to complex technical or organizational challenges.
• A passion for coaching and developing engineers, but also love to dig into technical problems when the opportunity arises.
• You keep up with the industry trends and continue to grow your technical knowledge and skills.

Things that might interest you:

• Our languages: Rust and Python.
• Our databases: Scylla, Elasticsearch, and Postgres.
• Our systems are deployed in Google Cloud.
• We’ve tackled a lot of fascinating technical challenges over the years, and blogged about it regularly:
  • How Discord Stores Trillions of Messages
  • 25% or 6 to 4: The 11/6/23 Authentication Outage
  • How Discord Supercharges Network Disks for Extreme Low Latency
  • Why Discord is switching from Go to Rust
  • How Discord Indexes Billions of Messages
  • How Discord Stores Billions of Messages
  • How Discord Indexes Trillions of Messages
• One of our team members even wrote a book on ScyllaDB
• We present at conferences:
  • How Discord Indexes Trillions of Messages by Vicki Niu
  • How Discord Performs Database Upgrades at Scale by Ethan Donowitz

PLEASE NOTE: This is not a 100% remote role. We are looking for someone to work in our San Francisco office at least 1 day per week.

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $304,000 to $342,000 + equity + 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. 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!

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