other
Posted 5 days agoManager, Scaled Abuse Countermeasures and Research
at Discord
On-site
Responsibilities
- Lead and grow the SCAR team, a group of Scaled Abuse Scientists who serve as Discord's first line of defense against bulk fake account creation, login abuse, spam, scams, fraud, and other high-volume threats.
- Define scaled abuse north-star metrics and build a roadmap and prioritization framework that keeps the team focused on the highest-impact problems.
Requirements
- This is an opportunity to reshape how the team operates: set a sharper strategy, stand up a structured research program, and lean heavily into ML and AI-powered automation to replace today's manual workflows.
- Close the loop with Safety ML so that SCAR's signals feed directly into model features and pipeline upgrades, and tactical wins translate into long-term, automated countermeasures.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Safety ML, Data Science, Policy, Legal, Trust & Safety, and Revenue, influencing safety-by-design decisions upstream so abuse is prevented, not just mitigated.
- experience leading technical teams, including engineers, ML engineers, data scientists, or applied researchers, or an equivalent track record of leading, mentoring, or coordinating technical work in a way that has prepared you to step into this role. 4+ years of
- experience working on Trust & Safety, fraud, anti-abuse, or a closely adjacent adversarial domain at a consumer-scale platform.
- Demonstrated ability to drive ML and automation adoption within a Trust & Safety or operations context.
- You don't need to build models yourself, but you need to understand them well enough to evaluate their quality, direct their development, and push a team toward automated solutions.
- Strong analytical skills and fluency in SQL and Python for data investigation and pattern analysis (not full software engineering proficiency required).
- Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills, with a history of partnering effectively across engineering, ML, data science, policy, legal, and product teams.
- Experience leveraging LLMs or AI agents for incident response, investigation automation, or signal triage. •
- Threat intelligence research background, including understanding of internet infrastructure and the tools and techniques attackers use.
- A relevant degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma counties).
Experience
- 2+ years of people management
Benefits
- Set a vision for the team that leans heavily into automation — scale SCAR's impact by partnering with Safety ML on ML-driven detection and building AI-powered incident response workflows that increase the team's leverage and reduce manual work.
- A growth mindset: you seek feedback, reflect on decisions, and actively help your team do the same. Bonus Points •
- The US base salary range for this full-time position is $220,000 to $275,000 + 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 benefits. Why Discord?
Additional details
- 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.
- Discord exists to give people the power to create space to find belonging — to talk regularly with the people they care about and build genuine relationships with friends and communities close to home or around the world.
- We're looking for a Manager to lead our Scaled Abuse Countermeasures and Research (SCAR) team — Discord's first line of defense against scaled abuse.
- SCAR combines rapid incident response with deep threat research and signal generation across bulk fake account creation, login abuse, spam, scams, fraud, and other high-volume threats.
- This role reports to the Director of Safety Automation.
- Stand up a research program where the team operates as scientists: surface the most important questions about attacker operations and signals, then systematically answer them through structured research and experimentation.
- Communicate attacker dynamics, economic incentives, and trade-offs clearly to senior leadership.
- Experience tackling scaled abuse problems at large social platforms, marketplaces, or other high-volume consumer products.
- A strong passion for Discord and/or gaming, and an appreciation for the communities we serve.