Senior Software Engineer, Machine Learning (Ads)
Discord · San Francisco, CA
$220,000–$275,000from the description
Jul 21, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 23, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior ML engineering role focused on building and scaling an early-stage advertising platform, covering areas such as ad targeting, delivery ranking, and measurement. The work involves designing and deploying models — including identity graphs and ranking systems — using Python, PyTorch, and TensorFlow against large-scale, real-time infrastructure. Suited to engineers with a solid background in ads-specific ML and applied deep learning.
Senior level · 5+ years · Remote · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 2,600 people nationally plausibly meet what this posting asks for (data scientists). range 960–3,400
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $122,874 (middle half $87,544–$162,374). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The role title is 'Senior Software Engineer' but the day-to-day work — designing and deploying ML models, ads ranking, targeting, and measurement — maps most closely to Data Scientists (15-2051). Software Developers (15-1252) is a credible runner-up given the engineering emphasis on building and scaling ML infrastructure.
The posting does not specify a single fixed location; Discord is known to hire remotely across the US, and no city is named, so the CBSA is left as Discord's HQ metro (San Francisco Bay Area) as a best-effort anchor.
PyTorch and TensorFlow are listed as interchangeable options ('such as PyTorch or TensorFlow'); PyTorch is named first and is the more common choice in this domain.
The 3+ years of Ads ML experience is a distinct, named sub-requirement within the required section and is captured on the 'Ads ML' skill entry.
Recommendation systems, distributed computing, and large-scale data infrastructure appear under the 'Bonus Skills' section and are marked preferred accordingly.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): real-time ML inference, large-scale data infrastructure.
Read the full posting
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