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Senior Software Engineer, Audio/Video Client

San Francisco Bay Area

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.

Power real-time conversations for 200+ million users worldwide. The mission of Discord's AV Client team is to give our users an outstanding voice, video, and game-streaming experience across Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. That’s a lot of platforms! We write native code using platform-specific APIs to provide the optimal experience wherever people use Discord. 

Ever wonder what happens when your friend's voice cuts out mid-clutch? Or why that one teammate always sounds like they're underwater? Plot twist: you could be the one fixing that! As a Senior Software Engineer on our AV Client team, your code will be the difference between 'Can you hear me?' and legendary gaming moments that friends talk about for years. 

We're looking for engineers who love diving deep into technical rabbit holes and emerging with elegant solutions to seemingly impossible problems. If you're excited about C++/Rust and building systems that work flawlessly for hundreds of millions of consumers while pushing the boundaries of what's technically feasible, this is your opportunity to work on truly cutting-edge media technology.

What you'll be doing

  • Build the core libraries that power conversations for millions of users (Typescript, Rust, and C++)
  • Continuously improve video quality and performance end to end across desktop, browser, and mobile platforms
  • Design and run experiments with proper success criteria and statistical rigor – because hunches don't answer the big question: “Does this actually make calls better?”
  • Play detective with audio/video gremlins hiding in endless configurations of user hardware

What you should have

  • 4+ years crafting large, cross-platform software projects (Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, or game console development),
  • You write C++/Rust code that makes computers purr, not cry (aka: understanding of memory management, multi-threading, and low-level optimization techniques)
  • You build real-time applications (media applications, games) where milliseconds matter
  • You know your way around CPU, GPU and memory profiling and can identify bottlenecks, optimize critical paths, and manage resource constraints effectively
  • You design experiments that prove (not just suggest) improvements

Bonus Points

  • Protocol Whisperer: Hands-on experience with WebRTC, SDP, SRTP, DTLS
  • Codec Connoisseur: Proficiency with common audio/video codecs such as Opus, H.264, AV1, etc.
  • Quality Detective: Knowledge of media quality measurement tools (PESQ, POLQA, VMAF, etc)
  • Pipeline Virtuoso: Real-world experience with media pipelines on platforms supported by Discord
  • Browser Deep-Diver: You've debugged Chromium or Mozilla internals

Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties). Relocation assistance may be available.

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $196,000 to $220,500 + equity + benefits. 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 US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or 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!

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.

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