Teacher job satisfaction is a heated topic worldwide. Among the possible factors influencing teacher job satisfaction, distributed leadership is very important one. Given very few studies have investigated the effects of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction through teacher autonomy and teacher collaboration, this paper is important. It is expected to provide international readers with a better understanding of how these variables are practised in the Chinese context. Specifically, we aim to achieve two goals. The first goal is to investigate the direct impact of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction and the second one is to explore how distributed leadership indirectly affects teacher job satisfaction through teacher autonomy and teacher collaboration. The data are from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) (n = 3976). Structural equation modeling revealed statistically significant positive effects of distributed leadership on teacher autonomy, teacher collaboration, and teacher job satisfaction, respectively. The further analyses indicated that the indirect effects of distributed leadership on teacher job satisfaction through teacher autonomy and professional collaboration were statistically significant. However, distributed leadership had no indirect effect on job satisfaction via exchange and co-ordination. Based on the findings, we propose some suggestions to improve teacher job satisfaction, such as strengthening communications between school leaders and teachers, and providing adequate autonomy to teachers. The detailed relationships among these variables are discussed in connection with Chinese educational context.