Staff Software Engineer - UI/UX & Animations

About the position

Join our team as a Staff Software Engineer focused on UI/UX & Animations. In this role, you will lead the creation of beautiful, intuitive user interfaces across Discord's web and mobile platforms. We're looking for someone with deep expertise in React and React Native who is passionate about design and animations, is excited to build world-class user experiences, and is comfortable navigating the entire technical stack. This role reports to one of our engineering leaders on our Core Product team. If you love crafting pixel-perfect UI, seamless user experiences, and scalable front-end architecture, we'd love to hear from you! We encourage candidates who are passionate about front-end engineering, design, and user experience to apply. If you love building stunning UIs and want to make a broad impact, this role offers the opportunity to do just that at a global scale.

Responsibilities

• Implement Highly Polished UIs: Function as both a thought leader who can craft thoughtful solutions to design problems both independently and in collaboration with dedicated designers. Bring interfaces to life with smooth animations and delightful interactions translating design concepts into pixel-perfect, high-quality code.
• Front-End Excellence: Write clean, maintainable code in React and React Native, and drive best practices in performance and accessibility for all UI components.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work with Product, Design, and Marketing to define your team's vision and roadmap by thoroughly understanding the needs of our users. Seamlessly transition between designing independently and implementing designs from the design team.
• Technical Leadership: Mentor engineers and set high code standards. Guide front-end architecture decisions, and champion UI/UX quality at Discord.

Requirements

• 8+ years of front-end development experience building rich, user-centric applications (web and/or mobile).
• Expertise in React and React Native: You have built complex applications in both, and understand their ecosystems/libraries deeply.
• Strong UI/UX sensibility: Passion for great design and user experience. You have an eye for detail and have implemented polished interfaces and animations (bonus if you've used libraries like Reanimated).
• Portfolio of Work: Ability to showcase specific UI examples of past work - e.g. live demos, GitHub projects, or portfolios demonstrating your front-end and design expertise.
• Performance & Accessibility: Extensive knowledge of front-end performance optimizations and web/mobile accessibility standards like WCAG. You ensure that your UIs are not only beautiful but also fast and usable for everyone.
• Collaboration & Communication: Excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams.

Nice-to-haves

• Design Systems Experience: Proven track record of building or maintaining a design system or reusable UI component library at scale. You understand design tokens, theming, and how to create components that are flexible and extensible.
• Passion for Discord or online communities

Benefits

• Equity
• Benefits