After Discord
- 20%Joined a startup11
- 20%Joined a big company11
- 59%Elsewhere
Shares of those who moved on, by their next stop.
People who leave Discord most often go to OpenAI, Meta and Snap. Of them, 20% go somewhere small. The median tenure is 2y 5m
Not Discord's headcount: these are the engineers in the Zelcast network and the profiles run through the Eng Scorer. 102 people on a map of 67,181, No. 228 on it by people. Updated September 30, 2026.
- People on the map
- 1020.2% of everyone on the map
- There now
- 4443% of the people here
- Moved on
- 5857% of the people here
- Median tenure
- 2y 5mmiddle half 1y 6m to 3y 11m
Came from, went to
Ribbon width is the number of people who made the move. Most arrive from Meta. Most leave for OpenAI (20% of recorded departures).
26 of 99 recorded arrivals shown, 73 more from 68 other companies19 of 56 recorded departures shown, 37 more to 32 other companies
How long people stay
13%<1y
29%1-2y
36%2-4y
19%4-7y
3%7y+
102 stays with both a start and an end on the record.
Who comes and goes, by year
<3016
0017
<3018
5019
4020
31021
23922
131223
82624
13725
5726
joined left2026 is a partial year
2016 to 2026: 105 joined, 61 left.
Caliber
83mediantop 10%95
0Eng Scorer caliber, 65 scored99
Titles held here
- Senior Software Engineer55
- Software Engineer27
- Staff Software Engineer7
- Senior Machine Learning Engineer5
- Staff Machine Learning Engineer5
- Engineering Manager3
6 most common titles, by people who held them.
Behind the median
Everyone here with an Eng Scorer read, placed in their caliber tier.
- 8%Exceptional5 people
- 22%Strong14 people
- 40%Solid26 people
- 26%Emerging17 people
- 5%Unproven3 people
65 of the 102 people here carry an Eng Scorer tier.
19 of the 65 people here with a read sit in exceptional or strong, the top two of the five tiers, 29%. A tier is the band a caliber score falls in, so this is the same measurement as the median on the caliber card, opened up.
Whether a title rose here
The level of the first title recorded here, against the last.
36%Titles that rose25 of 69 classified people
- 36%Rose25 people
- 52%Stayed level36 people
- 12%Fell8 people
69 of the 102 people here had a title that could be placed on the ladder before and after.
A title rose when the last title recorded here sits higher on the ladder than the first. For someone with one title here who then left, it's measured against the first title of their next role. The ladder runs intern, junior, mid, senior, staff or manager, principal, director, VP, then founder or C-level. Titles that match no rung are left out rather than guessed, and product, program and project managers are left out entirely as a different ladder. What's left leans towards people who have left: someone still here on one recorded title has nothing to measure against.
Where they studied
- Stanford12.9%
- UC Berkeley12.9%
- UIUC7.9%
- Carnegie Mellon5.9%
- Georgia Tech5.9%
- UC San Diego5.9%
- MIT5.0%
- Penn4.0%
The 8 most listed schools among the 101 people here with a school on file.
13 of the 101 people here with a school on file list Stanford, 13 list UC Berkeley and 8 list UIUC. A person can list more than one, so these overlap.
Public work
one square is one in a hundred
62%have a public GitHub account on their profile
63 of the 102 people here whose profile was checked for public accounts. An account the check missed reads the same as no account, so this is a floor.
31% is the median across the 857 companies that can show this figure.
Where they are now
81% of the people who have worked at Discord and list a location live in the San Francisco Bay Area today, against 41% of everyone on the map.
Discord
Everyone on the map
- 81%SF Bay Area83 · map 41%
- 7%New York7 · map 18%
- 3%Los Angeles3 · map 5%
- 9%Somewhere else9
All 102 people who worked at Discord list a location, and every share here is over them.
Where they live now, from the profile as it reads today, not where they sat while working at Discord: a metro here isn't an office there. The lower strip is the same metros across the whole map.
On the same resumes
Companies that show up most often alongside Discord, at any point in a career.
Key facts
- 102 people on the Zelcast alumni map have worked at Discord: 44 are there now, 58 have moved on.
- Most leave for OpenAI: 11 people, 20% of recorded departures. Then Meta and Snap.
- Most arrive from Meta: 8 people. Then Sentropy Technologies (acquired by Discord) and Google.
- Median tenure at Discord: 2y 5m, middle half 1y 6m to 3y 11m.
- Of the people with a recorded next move after Discord, fewer than 3 went to a founder title next, 20% joined a company of 200 or fewer, and 20% joined one of 10,000 or more.
- Median Eng Scorer caliber here: 83 on the 0 to 99 scale, across 65 scored people.
- Most common title held here: Senior Software Engineer, then Software Engineer.
- Top school: Stanford, listed by 13 of the 101 people here with one on file (12.9%). Then UC Berkeley (13).
- 81% of the 102 people here who list a location live in SF Bay Area today, against 41% across the map. Where they live now, not the office they sat in while they worked here.
- 62% of the 102 people here whose profile was checked for public accounts have a public GitHub.
- 25 rose, 36 stayed level, 8 fell, out of the 69 people here whose title could be placed on a ladder before and after.
About this data: built from 352,028 jobs across 67,181 engineers in the Zelcast network and Eng Scorer reads, updated September 30, 2026. A move counts when the next role starts within 24 months of leaving. Companies under 20 people on the map aren't shown, and destinations under 3 people fold into the totals. Caliber is the Eng Scorer score.
Worked at Discord? See how your profile reads to a startup hiring manager, and where it ranks among 67,181 engineers.
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