Senior Staff Software Engineer, Client Platform

9 Minutes ago • 10 Years + • Devops • $304,000 PA - $342,000 PA

Job Summary

Job Description

This role is for a Senior Staff Engineer on the Client Platform & Performance team, focusing on enhancing Discord's client experience across mobile, desktop, and web. The goal is to build a fast, reliable, and delightful product for a global user base of over 200 million, primarily gamers. The engineer will lead technical vision, architect foundational client-side infrastructure, and drive performance improvements, ensuring a high-quality and iterative approach to product development.
Must have:
  • Lead technical direction and strategy for client platforms.
  • Drive performance improvements across mobile, desktop, and web.
  • Architect and develop foundational client-side infrastructure.
  • Optimize and evolve React Native stack.
  • Own engineering quality for client performance.
  • Mentor and grow technical leaders.
  • 10+ years experience in large, cross-platform applications.
  • Deep understanding of client performance.
  • Expertise in JavaScript, TypeScript, React Native, Kotlin, Swift.
  • Experience with low-level performance optimization (C++, profiling).
  • Proven ability to diagnose and resolve complex performance issues.
Good to have:
  • Active in React, React Native, or broader performance communities.
  • Experience optimizing applications for international markets.
  • Experience with advanced profiling, instrumentation, and monitoring tools.
  • Background in game development or game-adjacent technologies.
Perks:
  • Equity
  • Benefits
  • Relocation assistance

Job Details

The platform 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 the platform each month. The platform 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.

We’re looking for a Senior Staff Engineer to join our Client Platform & Performance team to help lead the technical vision for the client experience across mobile, desktop, and web, with a special focus on building a fast, reliable, and delightful product for our growing global user base.

You’ll report to our Director of Engineering, Client Platform & Performance, and play a critical role in shaping the technical foundation that powers the experience for millions of people worldwide. Our goal is to build products that our customers absolutely love — functional, reliable, usable, and delightful — with performance as a core feature and an iterative approach to solving complex problems.

What you'll be doing:

  • Lead technical direction and strategy for client platforms, driving performance improvements across mobile, desktop, and web.
  • Architect and develop foundational client-side libraries and infrastructure, ensuring scalability, reliability, and exceptional end-to-end performance.
  • Optimize and evolve our React Native stack where it powers parts of our mobile experience, while collaborating on performance initiatives for other client technologies.
  • Own engineering quality for client performance, developing systems and processes to ensure it can be sustainably maintained and improved across all platforms.
  • Mentor and grow the next generation of technical leaders.

What you should have:

  • 10+ years of experience as a software engineer working on large, cross-platform applications.
  • Deep understanding of client performance, with hands-on experience improving performance on mobile, desktop, and/or web platforms.
  • Strong expertise in JavaScript/TypeScript and React Native or Kotlin or Swift, with additional experience in low-level performance optimization (e.g., C++, profiling tools).
  • A proven ability to diagnose and resolve complex performance issues.
  • Strong communication skills to drive clear technical discussions and build alignment across diverse teams.
  • Experience leading technical excellence, setting best practices for performance, quality, and accessibility at scale.

Bonus Points:

  • Active in the React, React Native, or broader performance communities (open source contributions, technical talks, etc.).
  • Experience optimizing applications for international markets with varying network conditions.
  • Experience with advanced profiling, instrumentation, and monitoring tools.
  • Background in game development or game-adjacent technologies.

Why join us?

The platform 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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About The Company

Discord is a voice, video and text platform that helps friends come together to hang out, play games and have fun. When Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy founded Discord in 2015 they had a hunch that multiplayer gaming would be the future of entertainment and that people would need a communications platform designed for them to talk with their gaming friends. Today, gaming has become the largest form of entertainment in the world, bigger than movies and music combined. It’s the fastest-growing as well. Discord makes it feel like you’re playing in the same room with friends.

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