Head of Machine Learning & AI

Discord is about giving people the power to create space to find belonging in their lives. We want to make it easier for you to talk regularly with the people you care about. We want you to build genuine relationships with your friends and communities close to home or around the world. Original, reliable, playful, and relatable. These are the values that connect our users and our employees at Discord.

Discord is looking for an experienced senior leader to lead ML/AI across the company! ML improves how people experience Discord, keeps people safe, and improves our understanding of the ecosystem. As Head of ML/AI, you will report directly to the VP of Data+ML and establish and drive a vision for how we use ML across the complete suite of company departments to transform our business. If you're passionate about applied ML, impact, and leading an amazing team, read on!

What You'll Be Doing

• Develop and implement a vision for how ML/AI is used across Discord
• Partner with team members, Product, and executives to identify opportunities to improve the user experience, keep users safe, improve internal operations, and improve our understanding of the Discord ecosystem
• Partner with our Data & ML Platform teams to identify opportunities to improve our infrastructure
• Evolve a world-class ML team of various functions that values impact, principled solutions, and innovation

You Will Thrive In This Role If

• 12+ years experience in applied machine learning
• 5+ years experience leading teams and have managed a team of teams
• Experience hiring and growing senior talent, from individual contributors to leaders
• Excellent communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences, with an ability to explain complex concepts in easy-to-understand ways and navigate ambiguous environments where problems are not well-defined (and evolve quickly)
• Experience being a creative and proactive “ML entrepreneur” - working with partners across the company to identify & prioritize high-value opportunities where ML can provide unique value
• Recent experience being a “hands-on” leader - we’re looking for someone who can work with senior executives (e.g. C-suite) to plan roadmaps & strategy, while also being effective in reviewing their team’s work, brainstorm on architecture, and so on
• Proficiency with the common industry data & ML tools - e.g. Python, Vertex, Argo.
• A desire to work with amazing, passionate people who care about solving challenging problems to improve Discord
• Last but not least - a collaborative attitude and natural curiosity!

Bonus Points

• Passion for Discord and gaming
• Direct experience applying ML to solve both offline & online problems, with a focus on building simple solutions quickly and optimizing over time
• Experience collaborating with data science, data engineering, and product engineering teams
• Experience collaborating with platform teams to set roadmaps that improve efficiency, cost, and scale

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $382,000 to $477,000 + 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.

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