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Staff Data Engineer - Data Infrastructure

Join Discord as a Staff Data Engineer to lead the technical vision for our analytical data infrastructure supporting millions of users.

Location
San Francisco Bay Area
Compensation
$279k–$310k/yr
Level
staff
Type
full time

Posted by employer 2 months ago

First seen on Joblaze 1 month ago

Last verified on the company career page 14 hours ago

Role intensity

40% coding

Requirements

Experience
7+ years

Not disclosed in this posting: work arrangement, visa sponsorship.

Benefits

Equity/Stock Options

Joblaze summary

In this role, the Staff Data Engineer at Discord will lead the development of the company's analytical data infrastructure, ensuring the creation of reliable and well-documented datasets. Key skills include expertise in SQL and Python, along with experience in data governance and quality assurance for large-scale datasets. This position is ideal for a seasoned professional with over seven years in data and software engineering, particularly those who have collaborated with cross-functional teams. The role emphasizes a strong technical vision and the ability to navigate complex data challenges.

Joblaze insights

  • Listed about a month ago — first seen on Joblaze August 11, 2026. Last confirmed on Discord's careers page October 9, 2026.
  • Salary band is above the typical range for Data Engineering roles (median ~$180,656).
  • Starts above 85% of 26 comparable staff data engineering roles that list Python we track (median $216,000 across 16 companies). See Python salary trends
  • Python appears in 43.6% of 101 comparable staff data engineering roles; Data Governance appears in 1% of 101 comparable staff data engineering roles.

Quick facts

What's the salary range?
Discord lists $279,000–$310,000 for this role.
How much experience is required?
At least 7 years of relevant experience for this Staff Data Engineer - Data Infrastructure role.
What's the tech stack?
Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: Analytics, Data Governance, Data Infrastructure, Data Quality, Python, SQL.
What seniority level is this role?
Discord targets staff-level candidates for this position.
Is this full-time or contract?
Full-time for this Staff Data Engineer - Data Infrastructure role at Discord.

From the original posting

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.

Discord is looking for a seasoned technical leader to join our Data team as a Staff Data Engineer. You will drive technical vision and strategy for our analytical data infrastructure which facilitates the transformation and semantic layer that powers clean, tested, well-documented datasets that the company can trust and self-serve from. The data your team builds won't just inform internal decisions, it will underpin the metrics we share with investors, partners, and the public, requiring exceptional rigor, auditability, and precision. This role works closely with Data Governance, Data Science, Product, Finance, and Engineering teams. This role reports to the Director of Data Engineering.

What You'll Be Doing

  • Define technical strategy and architectural direction for analytics data infrastructure, building and maintaining enterprise-scale curated datasets and data models
  • Own the design and implementation of data governance programs end to end, by partnering with stakeholders and translating policy requirements into flexible and configurable infrastructure in partnership with Data Platform Engineering.
  • Design and build sophisticated data abstractions and analytical frameworks using SQL, Python, and modern data stack technologies
  • Develop data quality frameworks, monitoring, anomaly detection, and alerting at massive scale, with governance, lineage tracking, and change management rigor appropriate for externally reported numbers
  • Drive adoption of consistent data modeling patterns, naming conventions, documentation norms, and metric governance standards across the data organization
  • Lead cross-functional technical initiatives across product verticals and mentor engineers to accelerate delivery and harden data systems
  • Navigate ambiguity and make sound technical decisions with incomplete information, balancing short-term delivery with long-term infrastructure investment

What You Should Have

  • 7+ years of experience in data and software engineering with a strong focus on building curated, consumer-facing datasets
  • 7+ years of experience in designing, developing, and maintaining data infrastructure used by data teams at scale.
  • Expert-level SQL and strong Python skills, with solid fundamentals in version control and CI/CD
  • Proven experience implementing data quality audits, monitoring systems, and automated remediation for massive datasets
  • Strong business acumen and communication skills, comfortable translating ambiguous business questions into concrete metric definitions and explaining complex implementations to audiences from engineering peers to executive leadership
  • Track record of hands-on collaboration with Data Science, Finance, and Product teams

Bonus Points:

  • Passion for Discord or online communities
  • Experience building or contributing to a semantic layer or metrics store
  • Experience with modern analytics and data engineering tools and workflows (dbt, BigQuery, or similar)
  • Experience defining and governing metric standards across a data organization
  • Experience with reporting infrastructure subject to external audit or SOX compliance

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $245,000 to $279,000 + 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?

Standard company text repeated across Discord's postings is omitted here.

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