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's Legal team is looking for an Associate Product Counsel to join its Product Legal team to provide dedicated support for our Safety products. Discord's Product Legal team partners directly with Product, Engineering, Data Science, and cross-functional teams to provide legal guidance and strategy that helps Discord launch new products and grow our user base. We help teams navigate complex legal landscapes while achieving their product goals by seeing around corners to identify risks and opportunities before they become roadblocks.
As Associate Product Counsel, Safety, you'll be a key member of our Product Legal team, partnering directly with our Safety Product organization. You'll advise on a range of topics such as how users report harm, how those reports are routed and remediated, as well as how Discord's safety detection models are built and deployed. You’ll also stay abreast of and advise the Safety organization on new regulatory obligations around the world. Reporting to our Managing Counsel for Safety Product, you'll join a small but growing team where your work will directly shape how Discord works to improve user safety for millions of users.
What you'll be doing:
- Serve as a key legal advisor to Discord's Safety Product teams, providing counsel across the reporting, routing, and remediation surfaces that help users stay safe.
- Support the development lifecycle and the guardrails governing deployment of models powering Discord's safety systems—partnering closely with Safety ML on how detection models are built, validated, and shipped.
- Review and assess new safety features and practices from the early design stages and forward.
- Advise on user-facing reporting, appeal, and take-down workflows, as well as the region-specific obligations that may shape them such as the EU’s Digital Services Act or the Take It Down Act in the United States.
- Proactively monitor the global online safety landscape, identifying inbound regulatory obligations affecting the Safety Product teams, assessing their applicability and exposure, and advising the team on strategic response and prioritization.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Trust & Safety operations, and Policy to translate complex safety regulations into practical, scalable solutions.
- Collaborate across the Discord Legal team — including regional Regulatory, Privacy, and Litigation Counsel—to develop aligned positions on cross-cutting safety obligations and drive strategic decisionmaking about how Discord meets them.
What you should have:
- J.D. from an accredited law school
- Admission to the California Bar or eligible to register as in-house counsel with the California Bar
- 4+ years of legal experience, ideally combining law firm and in-house experience at a consumer-facing technology company
- Demonstrated experience counseling product and engineering teams on online safety, content moderation, platform liability, and/or privacy — ideally at a social, gaming, or UGC platform.
- Ability to turn complex regulatory text into clear, operational guidance that product and engineering teams can actually implement
- Strong business judgment and the ability to provide practical, creative advice on challenging online safety and legal topics
- Proven ability to build trusted relationships with cross-functional partners and communicate complex legal concepts to non-legal audiences
- Self-starter with excellent project management skills and comfort operating in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.
Bonus points:
- Experience with gaming platforms, social platforms, or UGC platforms.
- Experience with Trust & Safety operations, content moderation systems, or detection/classifier model development.
- Knowledge of international online safety frameworks (EU Digital Services Act, Brazilian Digital ECA, UK Online Safety Act, Australia Online Safety Act, or analogous regimes).
- Knowledge of online safety regulations and frameworks in the United States (Take It Down Act, COPPA, US-state age appropriate design or age assurance laws)
- Exposure to child safety regulation and age-appropriate design requirements.
- Experience developing legal operations infrastructure (playbooks, reviewer guidance, training, tracking systems).
Please note: This role involves exposure to potentially disturbing topics such as child sexual abuse material, exploitation imagery, and grooming-related content. Wellness support is provided.
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). Relocation assistance may be available.
For this role, the hiring team would prefer folks to be in the office 1-2 days a week.
The US base salary range for this full-time position is $200,000 to $225,000 + 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 equity, or benefits.
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, and helps developers build and grow their businesses. 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.
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