Discord Security Eng Manager - Remote West Coast — Columbus
Traveler-Friendly Insight
Timezone Constraint: This is a West Coast (U.S.) role — a significant limiter for nomads. Discord explicitly requires alignment with Pacific Time (PT), which means you'll need to be available during roughly 9am–6pm PT (UTC-7/8). This effectively restricts workable locations to UTC-8 through UTC+3 without major schedule sacrifices — think Central/South America, Western Europe, and parts of Africa.
Remote flexibility exists, but geography is constrained. While the role is listed as remote, it is U.S.-West-Coast-based, and the job listing on "Anywhere in the World" may be aspirational rather than practical. Visa-wise, non-U.S. residents should not assume this is a globally open role — Discord likely requires U.S. work authorization.
Salary vs. nomad cost of living: At $248K–$310K USD annually, this salary is exceptional by any standard:
- Lisbon, Portugal: A comfortable nomad lifestyle costs ~$2,500–$3,500/month. This salary leaves enormous margin even after taxes.
- Bangkok, Thailand: High-end living runs ~$1,500–$2,500/month — this salary would go extremely far, though PT timezone overlap is very challenging (UTC+7).
- Medellín, Colombia: ~$1,500–$2,500/month for a great lifestyle; UTC-5 aligns reasonably well with PT hours.
No explicit travel perks (coworking stipend, equipment budget) are mentioned, though equity participation adds long-term upside. Nomads in the Americas or Western Europe with U.S. work authorization are best positioned for this role.
Headquarters: Remote (West Coast)
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.
More broadly, Discord is about empowering people to find belonging in all kinds of communities, and those people trust us to keep their communications safe. Our Platform Security Engineering team protects the systems we use to create Discord, making the "secure way" the "easy way."
We're looking for an Engineering Manager to lead a team of software engineers in articulating and pursuing the most leveraged opportunities to reduce security risk across Engineering. This team will design and build lovable "paved paths" for managing identities and access, shipping code, configuring cloud infrastructure, and operating services. If you're an Engineering Manager who's deeply curious, eager to own technically and socially complex projects, and excited to improve security and privacy at Discord, read on!
What You'll Do
You'll shape company-wide security strategy and lead a highly-autonomous and horizontally-integrated team of software engineers who will:
- Develop and apply best-in-class secure baselines for cloud infrastructure, owning the security of all cloud environments
- Manage infrastructure vulnerabilities while supporting a high-velocity engineering org with hundreds of developers
- Secure first- and third-party software supply chains, from the dev environment through CI/CD and into production
- Build and operate identity and access management (IAM) systems for humans and machines that are user-friendly and promote least privilege
- Consult on risk assessments, architectural designs, threat models, code reviews, and more—pragmatically balancing security with other business considerations
What We Look For
- 3+ years of experience as a people manager, having managed a team of 3+ security software engineers
- Passion for creating diverse and inclusive teams and coaching engineers
- 3+ years of experience securing systems with millions of users
- Comfort with writing the roadmap, not just following one
- Experience building in and securing cloud-based environments (we use GCP, Cloudflare, and AWS)
- Expert reasoning about the security of complex systems, even if they contain unfamiliar components
- Experience writing software in a general-purpose programming language (we use Python, Typescript, and Rust)
- Experience developing with agentic AI, and a good grasp of AI security practices
Bonus Points If You Have…
- Understanding of modern authentication and authorization concepts (e.g. RBAC, OAuth, Zero Trust network architectures, mTLS)
- Familiarity with build and CI/CD technologies (e.g. Terraform, Bazel, Buildkite, Spacelift)
- Experience defining and orchestrating containers (e.g. via Kubernetes, Docker, Distroless, OCI) and serverless workloads (e.g. Cloudflare Workers)
- Experience with running and operationalizing security platforms such as Wiz
This position is West Coast (U.S.) based and can be remote but if you live in the Bay Area, you're welcome to work from our beautiful SF office.
The base salary range for this full-time position is listed below. This position will also be eligible for equity and 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 role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include equity, or benefits.
Base Salary: $248,000 — $310,000 USD
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, and helps developers build and grow their businesses. 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!
Discord is committed to inclusion and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. We want you to feel set up for success, so if you are in need of reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.
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.
To apply: https://weworkremotely.com/remote-jobs/discord-engineering-manager-platform-security
Frequently Asked Questions
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