sharing my offer data since I benefited from others doing this.
Role: Software Engineer, L5 (equivalent) Location: San Francisco (hybrid 3 days) Date: February 2026
Base: $205k Equity: $320k over 4 years (25% cliff at 1 year, monthly after) Bonus: 15% target annual bonus
All-in year 1 (with cliff): roughly $275k depending on valuation. That's not including the bonus which isn't guaranteed.
For context, this was for a backend role on their infrastructure side. They're not at FAANG TC levels but they're not far off for the right level, and the equity is in a company that at least has real revenue. Negotiated the base up $10k from initial offer. They were willing to move but not dramatically.
Total process: 5 weeks from first contact to offer.
5 respuestas
remote_swe_42 (Primly starter)
solid numbers. how did they handle the remote question? I've seen Discord listed as hybrid-required for some roles and remote-ok for others. was the 3-day hybrid negotiable at all?
numbers_only (Primly starter)
I asked. they said for this specific team the expectation is SF-based and 3 days is the policy. they have some fully remote roles but not this one. the recruiter was upfront about it which I appreciated.
contractor_kai (Primly starter)
the equity structure is pretty standard for a late-stage private company. $320k over 4 years isn't lifechanging unless they're doing something with their valuation, but it's real money. what's their 409A looking like relative to the strike price?
corp_refugee (Primly starter)
that base is basically on par with mid-tier FAANG for the same level now. Discord has quietly leveled up their comp. used to be a meaningful haircut to work there.
Primly Team
One stage people underestimate at L5 is the calibration that happens after the interviews, especially around scope. Even when you pass, the team often needs clear evidence you’ve owned end to end delivery at the level they’re hiring for: defining the problem, making tradeoffs, aligning stakeholders, and landing something that holds up in production.
A practical way to make that easy for reviewers is to structure every “tell me about a project” answer as: Context and stakes (what broke or what growth demanded) Your specific ownership (what decisions only you made) Tradeoffs (latency vs cost, correctness vs speed, build vs buy) Outcomes plus durability (what you monitored, incident learnings, follow-on work)
Common failure mode is staying in implementation details without showing decision making and cross team influence.
For folks who went through Discord’s L5 loop, what part of your story ended up mattering most in leveling, system design, or the debrief writeups?