Senior Threat Operations Specialist

Discord is used by over 200 million people every month for many different reasons, but there’s one thing that nearly everyone does on our platform: play video games. Over 90% of our users play games, spending a combined 1.5 billion hours playing thousands of unique titles on Discord each month. Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We are focused on making it easier and more fun for people to talk and hang out before, during, and after playing games.

This role is critical in supporting the company to deeply understand and mitigate how harmful content, including child sexual abuse material, manifests on our platform, as well as investigating complex threats, advancing our investigative capabilities, and developing innovative approaches to prevent harm to our users, particularly minors. This hire will report to the Escalated Harms Manager who works East Coast, US.

This role involves exposure to graphic and/or objectionable content including but not limited to graphic images, videos and writings, offensive and derogatory language, and other potentially objectionable material, ie. child exploitation, graphic violence, self-injury, animal abuse, and other content which may be considered offensive or disturbing.

What you'll be doing

• Review and respond to sensitive content escalations in our queues, including but not limited to the review of child exploitation, graphic violence, self-injury and suicide, explicit images, videos, and other objectionable and/or disturbing content.

• Investigate complex cases to develop a detailed understanding of how abuse is occurring and attribute it to the person(s), and/or network(s) responsible, in order to prepare high-quality written reports, for both internal and external audiences, including NGOs and law enforcement agencies

• Proactively identify currently undetected abuse by leveraging internal data, open-source intelligence, trusted partner information and third party private intelligence

• Demonstrate operational excellence when evaluating risks, threats, and user privacy in time-critical situations and execute decision-making while analyzing a variety of factors that include imminence of danger, sensitivities, and/or graphic content

• Work collaboratively in responding to sensitive issues, providing deep knowledge into different exploitative content types and sharing insights and expertise about minor safety and exploitative content issues

• Respond to users experiencing safety-related or high harm issues and empathetically address their concerns

• Identify effective strategies to prevent or disrupt abuse at scale and work collaboratively with other internal teams, including Policy, Product, Engineering and Legal to effect those strategies

• Create, maintain, and develop internal resources around contemporary subject matter expertise, workflows and process updates

• Mentor and guide junior team members in the execution of their duties, including delivering internal training

• Ability to work irregular hours (including some early morning or evening times for meetings), and occasional weekend/ holiday shifts to support our global operations

What you should have

• At least 3+ years experience investigating crimes against children (ie: intelligence, law enforcement, NGOs, or Trust and Safety teams).

• Knowledge of reporting to NGOs and including prior investigation experience

• Exceptional communication skills with an ability to communicate complex information, concepts, or ideas in a confident and well-organized manner through verbal, written, and/or visual means

• Previous experience in working in a cross-functional environment, high-pressure, sensitive environment, with demonstrated ability to use risk-based assessments to prioritize workload while meeting specific SLAs

Bonus Points

• Native language skills with a second language (preferably Portuguese)

• Tertiary qualifications or equivalent experience in Intelligence Studies, Cybersecurity, Criminal Justice, Criminology or related field.

• Experience in utilizing SQL, Python or other programming languages for data manipulation

This is a 9-month, temporary full-time W2 position with benefits — open to candidates based anywhere in the US, with potential to extend or convert. If you're in the Bay Area, you're also welcome to work from our SF office.

The US base salary range for this temporary full-time position is $124,000 to $136,500 (prorated based on tenure) + 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.

#LI-Remote

Why Discord?

Discord plays a uniquely important role in the future of gaming. We're a multiplatform, multigenerational and multiplayer platform that helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests. We believe games give us a way to have fun with our favorite people, whether listening to music together or grinding in competitive matches for diamond rank. Join us in our mission! Your future is just a click away!

Discord is committed to inclusion and providing reasonable accommodations during the interview process. We want you to feel set up for success, so if you are in need of reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.

Please see our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Policy for details regarding Discord’s collection and usage of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking HERE.