Learn how to prepare for Discord interviews with this in-depth guide.
Discord is a communication platform with text, chat, and video services and over 200 million users.
It hosts “servers” that are used by many different kinds of communities. A Discord server could be public and used by a college or private and used by a small friend group.
When interviewing at Discord, you might run into mention of Wumpus, a fun character and mascot of the Discord brand. An indicator of Discord's fun-spirited work environment, you’ll see Wumpus pop up across the Discord website on the Discord app, and it might just get mentioned in one of your interviews, too.
Below, we summarize the Discord interview process and the top questions you should expect to answer.
- Discord Product Manager Interview Guide
Discord Interview Process
At Discord, interviews usually include three stages, with five screens within the last stage.
Expect conversations with different stakeholders related to the role in each round.
The Discord interview process typically takes about 3–4 weeks and involves:
- Recruiter phone screen,
- Technical screen,
- Final round.
Recruiter phone screen
The first step of Discord’s interview process is a 30-minute phone call with a Discord recruiter.
Prepare for several high-level technical questions, but answer briefly.
Recruiters are looking for the right keywords in your response more than the depth necessary for later rounds.
Ask your recruiter about the rest of the
Discord encourages questions about the rest of the interview process during this initial call, too.
Hiring manager screen
The second step of Discord’s interview process is a conversation with the hiring manager.
Expect a high-level discussion of your background relevant to the role and what you’re looking for in your next position.
Technical questions will be brief and high-level; this interview focuses on behavioral questions and assesses your cultural fit.
Come prepared with examples that align with Discord’s values.
Highlight things like collaboration and a customer-first mindset.
Technical roles can expect a coding challenge to follow the hiring manager screen.
This challenge may be a take-home test or may be conducted live with an engineer. Expect standard data structure and algorithm questions of medium difficulty.
Final rounds
The final round at Discord typically has five 45-minute screens, all in one day.
Your final round can happen in person or virtually.
These rounds vary depending on the role you’re interviewing for and are conducted by various stakeholders associated with the role. Expect at least one culture fit interview, regardless of domain.
Top Discord Interview Questions
These are examples of interview questions asked at Discord, as reported by candidates.
Behavioral
- Tell me about your past projects.
- Tell me about yourself.
- Describe a time when your project failed.
- Tell me about a skill you recently learned.
- Can you provide an example of how you manage conflict?
- Tell me about a mistake you made and what you learned from it.
Coding
- Build a TCP chat server.
- Tell me about a technical project you’ve led.
- Implement a chat service using a language of your choice.
- Design a React component that functions like an Excel cell.
- Write a program that checks if a word contains another word.
System design
- Design a URL shortener.
- Using Telnet or NetCat, create a chat server that allows multiple clients to connect and send messages to one another.
- Design a system to provide real-time recommendations to users joining new servers.
- Using UDP, build a chat program.
Machine learning
- Why did you become an ML engineer?
- How would you engineer features to improve the accuracy of a toxicity detection model in chat messages?
- How would you implement a recommendation system for Discord users?
Data science
- How would you design an A/B test for a new feature on Discord?
- Describe a time when you had to analyze a large dataset. What tools did you use?
- What metrics would you consider important for measuring user engagement on Discord?
- Explain the concept of p-value and its significance in hypothesis testing.
Product management
- Improve Discord.
- How would you measure the success of Discord's new game purchasing feature?
- How would you improve Discord for new users?
- Here’s a new feature idea. How would you go about building it?
- Describe a project where you had an enormous impact. What kind of data did you use when making decisions?
Discord Interview Loops
Behavioral
The behavioral round at Discord is a 45-minute conversational interview to assess candidates’ potential fit with Discord’s culture.
Learn Discord’s working principles.
Then, prepare examples from past roles highlighting how you exemplify Discord’s values, such as collaboration, customer focus, and learning from mistakes.
Coding
Discord’s coding final round includes several screens.
You’ll get a coding round of product-specific data structure and algorithm questions, typically at a medium difficulty level but slightly more challenging than the initial coding screen.
Then, a frontend coding round using React if you're interviewing for frontend roles.
Lastly, you’ll have a conversational round about past roles, where you’ll likely be asked about a project you led in the past. Explain your impact and mention specifics that align with Discord's values, like how you collaborated with other teams, what you learned, and what you’d do differently in a future project.
System design
The system design round at Discord is a standard system design interview. Expect to get a design problem that relates to Discord’s real-time communication platform.
Practice designing scalable and reliable systems with high availability that can handle real-time messaging, voice, and video interactions.
Familiarize yourself with Discord and read through Discord’s blog and developer docs.
Machine learning
Discord’s machine learning round includes a conversational interview to discuss your technical ML knowledge and experience. Be sure to bring up ML projects relevant to this role and team. You typically also get a take-home ML case study to present.
To prepare, refresh your knowledge of ML concepts. For your take-home project, expect a practical, real-world problem that assesses your ML technical abilities, such as developing a small ML model.
Learn Discord’s platform before your case study and read Discord’s blog to understand its newest ventures.
Data science
For the data science round at Discord, you’ll get asked about your previous data experience and past projects. Be sure to mention projects that tie into the role and team you’re interviewing for.
Expect to get tested on your coding proficiency in SQL, Python (including pandas and scikit-learn), as well as your understanding of statistical concepts, experimentation design, and A/B testing methodologies. You'll also get a small case study, where you have to design a solution.
Product management
The product management interview at Discord includes five rounds: data, design sense, product sense, leadership, and a case study. You'll be assessed on your data-thinking skills in the data round, your collaboration skills with UX/UI designers in the design sense round, and your ability to solve an open-ended product question in the product sense round.
The leadership round is a conversation in which the interviewer assesses your leadership and conflict style through questions about past experiences. You’ll also be expected to ask high-level questions about company vision.
In your case study round, prepare for a practical question (study the product this team works on ahead of time to predict questions), which you must solve from both macro and micro levels.
Discord Interview Tips
Discord values collaboration and belonging.
Broadcast a signal of practical, enjoyable teamwork and collaboration to demonstrate how you’d fit into Discord’s workplace culture.
Create a story bank of anecdotes that highlight these skills to prepare for behavioral interview questions in particular.
Discord is a hybrid workplace.
If you want to work at Discord, you’ll likely need to live in or relocate to San Francisco or Amsterdam because almost all of Discord’s roles are hybrid.
The highest number of roles are in San Francisco, with some specialized roles in the Amsterdam office. A small number of select roles are remote, with most of those being US-based.
Of course, Discord uses a Discord server for its internal company communications. It refers to the employee server as the real “Discord HQ.”
Know Discord inside and out.
- Download and check out Discord’s platform.
- Read up on current ventures and updates on Discord's blog.
- Dig into Discord’s developer docs.
- Check out the many, many Discord servers that are out there.
- Look into Discord’s company story.
- Understand Discord’s values on Discord’s working principles page.
FAQs
How competitive are Discord interviews?
Discord’s interview process is in-depth and challenging. It has three stages and a final round of five interviews—slightly more than similar-sized companies.
However, some of the questions are easier than those of other big tech companies. For example, the coding interview questions are usually of medium difficulty.
How should I prepare for my interview at Discord?
- Study interview questions at Discord.
- Refresh your knowledge of coding questions for the tech screen.
- Create a story bank of behavioral question answers that align with Discord’s working principles.
- Review an Exponent interview course in your domain: ML engineering, data science, SWE, system design, or PM.
- Book a mock interview to practice commonly asked questions.
Does Discord hire students or new grads?
Yes, Discord offers internships for current students.
Any currently open opportunities are listed on the “Internships” section of the Discord careers page.
More Discord Interview Prep Resources
Exponent has extensive resources to prepare you to feel your best when it comes time for your interview at Discord:
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