Job Description

Senior Software Engineer, Audio/Video Client

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.

This position will be located in the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties), or willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Power real-time conversations for 200+ million users worldwide. Discord's AV Client engineering team supports the ultra-low-latency media infrastructure that enables seamless voice and video communication across gaming, communities, and friendships. The team's mission is to give our users an outstanding voice, video, and client experience across all of our platforms.

As a Senior Software Engineer on our AV Client team, you'll architect and optimize the cross-platform media stack that processes billions of minutes of audio/video daily. Your code will directly impact how millions of people connect from casual voice chats to high-stakes esports tournaments where every millisecond matters. You'll architect user-facing solutions using modern C++ and Rust, optimize media pipelines, and debug issues that span network protocols, hardware drivers, and operating system quirks across Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. Your work directly impacts metrics that matter - call connection success rates, audio quality scores, and the battery life of mobile users in voice channels for hours.

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 by the challenge of building systems that work flawlessly for hundreds of millions of users 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

• Develop core libraries supporting high-quality, low-latency communications between hundreds of millions of users
• Own Discord core audio and video functionalities across desktop, browser, and mobile
• Continuously improve video quality and performance end to end
• Design and run experiments to optimize call quality metrics
• Debug complex audio/video issues across diverse hardware configurations
• Work with customer support team troubleshooting real-world end-user audio/video issues

What You Should Have

• 4+ years experience working on large, cross-platform software projects
• Proficient in developing high-performance code using C++ or Rust
• Intimate knowledge with Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS or game console development
• Deep understanding of real-time constraints in media applications
• Knowledge of performance metrics such as CPU, GPU and memory management
• Enjoyment in coming up with pragmatic solutions to concrete problems using first principles thinking.
• Experience running A/B tests on features, analyzing quality metrics and making data-driven optimization decisions

Bonus Points

• Working experience with WebRTC, SDP, SRTP, DTLS
• Experience working with common audio/video codecs such as Opus, VP8, H.264, etc
• Knowledge of media quality measurement tools (PESQ, POLQA, VMAF, etc)
• Experience with audio/video synchronization and jitter buffer management
• Working experience with media pipeline on platforms supported by Discord
• Experience with Chromium or Mozilla internals.

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.

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!

Job Tags

Similar Jobs