How are career development opportunities at Discord?

Welcoming culture, transparent communication from leaders, clear expectations, great work/life balance, and a lot of opportunities for growth!

I have no cons so far!

The individuals are wonderful. 99% of the people I meet, chat with, and work with, are amazing, kind, and hard working. I have met some of my closest friends at Discord. My manager is also pretty solid. Nothing to write home about, but he genuinely tries to take care of those under him, and he does his best to check in to see how we're doing and if we need help. Pay is pretty good. Better than I would make at other companies for sure. Plus it's hybrid, so you can move around the country and keep your job security.

Everyone I talk to that isn't in management is burnt out. Hiring practices do not support the amount of work expected to grow the company's profile and profits. I know of several people who left for greener pastures and who were just never replaced. As a result, their duties are now being added to someone else's already busy schedule. I don't know of a single department that isn't impacted by this. It's a growing problem that has yet to be addressed. Leadership seems unaware or content to ignore it. Sometimes lip service is paid, but rarely. Decisions are made without any warning, and plans seem to be on a constant pivot. If you aren't in certain departments you will get little to no recognition for the work you do. I don't remember the last time our CX department got a shout-out for dealing with the unending barrage of harassment from our users. Same for our Trust & Safety teams. Corners are bring cut, and profit is the name of the game. I wouldn't be shocked if they start quietly letting go of more and more people. That's a big reason why people aren't being replaced, the money saved on salary looks good to leadership. AI is being implemented here and there, and will likely start taking over more of the work. I currently don't trust that I have any real job security. Honestly, this place has destroyed my mental health. I work the equivalent of three different roles at this point, and I am still asked to do more. I truly dislike working here, but the pay is such that I can't currently quit without taking a cut. And I can't afford that. If you are looking into working here, heed the lower star reviews. Yeah, some people love it at Discord, but at this point they're in the minority. Once the honeymoon period ends, you're more likely to be burnt out than not.

The ICs that you work with are genuinely some of the most passionate and smart people that you'll work with. Pay is pretty decent for the industry and the remote work policy is great, and it's a very popular product and a line-item that'll look good on a resume.

The pandemic propelled Discord into hyper-growth, but as the summer of 2021 came and people started going back outside, Discord's leadership couldn't find a way to capture that audience for the long-term and sustain that level of growth. Ever since then, the company was floundering, chasing industry buzzwords like crypto and AI and constantly changing their target demographic in an attempt to recapture those pandemic-level highs. As a result, the long-term strategy was nonexistent, and there was no clear vision for the future of the company. Obviously, this is evident now as Discord has done a round layoffs for the first time, but this is a lagging indicator of systemic issues that have been at play for a while. The old addage of the fish rotting from its head is true here - ultimately, the lack of experience from leadership and the inability to build, expand, and sell a product like Discord. During my time there, leadership chased industry buzzwords like crypto and AI at the behest of the core userbase, and rolled out multiple changes to the app's design and core primitives that resulted in the app store ratings for the apps plummeting. Communication between leadership and ICs were not healthy, and often times it felt like leadership was not interested in the voice of passionate employees that cared about doing the right thing. Something is wrong here, and it's almost certainly not the ICs at the front-line. During my time at the company, I was subject to multiple re-orgs, broken promises about career opportunities and ways to have an impact, and consistently got the short end of the stick when it came to promotions, raises, and compensation adjustments. Given the recent reviews and stigma around the company, I'm not sure any of this has gotten better. I would avoid working here.

Really love the transparency from all of our leadership and departments. Great opportunities to collaborate and work on fun projects while still hiring amazing folks for the company. Overall, such smart and talented folks across the People Org that make such a welcoming environment where you can be yourself.

If I had to put one, would like to see a few more opportunities and focus on leadership setting up a plan/trajectory to how we can develop and move up levels.

Lots of freebies but at the expense of layoffs.

Lots of layoffs that could have been prevented. Lots of waste as far as spending on many half baked ideas Lots of stealing going on, personal items and ideas. The leaders don’t lead and many can be very lazy because they are socially protected. Absolutely no defined career paths They do not put the important things in writing so you’ll never have legs to stand on.

Loved the people, loads of ways to progress career

Can't name any of the top of my head

- WLB is generally decent - ICs are smart and friendly. People are collaborative, really smart and impressive. - Compensation is competitive

- The leadership is astoundingly bad. They fired all the middle managers and have ICs report directly to ex-big tech directors, most of whom are not good at their job. - They like to fire people who have been widely acknowledged as strong performers when things don't go their way; leadership likes to shift blame to the team and throw people under the bus. I have never seen a leadership so cutthroat and so unwilling to take accountability. Do better. - Impossible to grow a career in. Managers care more about making themselves look good rather than growing and supporting their team.

Credit where credit is due. Discord has been the least "toxic" work environment in my career working in many different industries and organizations of differing sizes. On many occasions, I saw Discord abide by the values they preached. Workers are treated with respect, and the work/life balance is as good as a start up can get.

Discord's work culture that I listed as a pro becomes a disservice for early-career employees. There is a sense of "coddling" that produced a happy but naive workforce. Which leads to the more egregious issue at Discord, and how it was allowed to fester. Jobs titles are heavily under-calibrated and mismatched with the actual responsibilities. My suspicion is that this is done on purpose. It has to do with Discord's policy of compensating at the 85th percentile, which is very easy to do when your workforce is hired at 1 or sometimes 2 levels below their actual responsibilities. From speaking with other employees in different departments, this seems to be a systemic issue. There were heads of departments that did not hold senior titles for example...

There are no pros to working at discord

Working at Discord was an absolute nightmare. Management is a disaster, making random decisions with zero transparency. The work environment is toxic, with rampant favoritism and zero inclusivity. Career growth? Forget it. Promotions are based on politics, not merit. Expect to work around the clock with no respect for personal time—burnout is guaranteed. The pay is a joke compared to the industry standards, and benefits are laughable. Projects are chaotic, with constant changes and impossible deadlines.

- Smart and Supportive peers - Impression infra with little eng resource to support billions of msgs per day

- Company strategies kept changing to figure out the monetization path - Career ladders are almost equivalant with FAANG level but without matching pay