Staff Data Engineer, Ads

Discord is a platform used by over 200 million people for gaming and communication. They are seeking a Staff Data Engineer to drive technical vision and strategy for ads data infrastructure, build and maintain data pipelines, and mentor fellow engineers.

Responsibilities:

• Create and maintain complex, enterprise-scale data pipelines and foundational datasets while defining technical strategy and architectural direction for advertising products
• Design and build sophisticated ETL processes, data models, and analytical frameworks using SQL, Python, and modern data stack technologies
• Build and maintain the data infrastructure that powers Ads ML - feature pipelines, label generation workflows, and training data systems that enable our ranking and delivery models
• Develop data quality frameworks, monitoring systems, automated anomaly detection, and alerting infrastructure that operates at massive scale
• Collaborate with data scientists, ML engineers, and product teams to identify high-impact data infrastructure opportunities, owning design through implementation
• Drive cross-functional technical initiatives solving sophisticated data engineering challenges
• Build scalable rubrics that help lead and mentor engineers through projects that accelerate launch velocity and harden data systems
• Navigate ambiguity and make sound technical decisions with incomplete information, balancing short-term delivery with long-term infrastructure investment

Requirements:

• 7+ years of hands-on experience writing production code and architecting data pipelines with high-volume consumer data in advertising technology domains (eg. ad delivery, ranking, targeting, identity)
• 7+ years of direct implementation experience designing, coding, and maintaining complex data models and systems handling structured and unstructured data sources
• Expert-level coding abilities in SQL, Python, and modern data engineering frameworks with demonstrated ability to write performant, maintainable, and scalable code
• Digital advertising data engineering expertise with hands-on experience building high-throughput data pipelines for ad serving, conversion tracking, advertising measurement, or integrating and normalizing third-party advertising data from external platforms and partners
• Proven hands-on experience implementing and debugging data quality audits, monitoring systems, and automated remediation for massive datasets (billions+ rows)
• Strong technical communication abilities to explain complex implementations to stakeholders while thriving in rapidly-evolving technical environments
• Passion for solving complex problems through direct technical contribution and desire to work with exceptional engineers on challenging data infrastructure
• Hands-on collaboration experience implementing solutions with data science, ML engineering, and product teams through direct technical contribution
• Collaborative mindset with intellectual curiosity and commitment to technical excellence through hands-on delivery
• Passion for Discord or gaming in general
• Hands-on integration experience implementing connections with external data sources, APIs, and third-party advertising platforms
• Experience with modern data storage and processing technologies (BigQuery SQL, Airflow, Dagster, DBT, or similar)
• Experience with data visualization and dashboarding technologies (Looker, Tableau, or similar)
• Experience with designing data architecture to power a variety of use cases, including experimentation