Discord

The ICs that you work with are genuinely some of the most passionate and smart people that you'll work with. Pay is pretty decent for the industry, and the remote work policy is great. It's a very popular product and a line-item that'll look good on a resume.

The pandemic propelled Discord into hyper-growth. But as the summer of 2021 came and people started going back outside, Discord's leadership couldn't find a way to capture that audience for the long-term and sustain that level of growth.

Ever since then, the company was floundering, chasing industry buzzwords like crypto and AI and constantly changing their target demographic in an attempt to recapture those pandemic-level highs. As a result, the long-term strategy was nonexistent, and there was no clear vision for the future of the company.

Obviously, this is evident now as Discord has done a round of layoffs for the first time. But this is a lagging indicator of systemic issues that have been at play for a while.

The old adage of the fish rotting from its head is true here. Ultimately, the lack of experience from leadership and the inability to build, expand, and sell a product like Discord.

During my time there, leadership chased industry buzzwords like crypto and AI at the behest of the core userbase and rolled out multiple changes to the app's design and core primitives that resulted in the app store ratings for the apps plummeting. Communication between leadership and ICs was not healthy, and often times it felt like leadership was not interested in the voice of passionate employees that cared about doing the right thing. Something is wrong here, and it's almost certainly not the ICs at the front-line.

During my time at the company, I was subject to multiple re-orgs, broken promises about career opportunities and ways to have an impact, and consistently got the short end of the stick when it came to promotions, raises, and compensation adjustments. Given the recent reviews and stigma around the company, I'm not sure any of this has gotten better. I would avoid working here.

I think it's nearly impossible to get back to those pandemic-era highs, and I think it's a catastrophic failure of leadership that the company has sunk to the lows in the fallout of the pandemic.

I do believe there's a salvageable, profitable company here (that is unfortunately a shadow of its former self), but I'm not sure this leadership team has what it takes to make up for their past mistakes - but try you must.