Staff Software Engineer, Data Engineering

The Community You Will Join:

At Airbnb, we need to ensure every area of the business has trustworthy data to fuel insight and innovation. Understanding the business need, securing the right data sources, designing usable data models, and building robust & dependable data pipelines are essential skills to meet this goal. 

We are currently hiring for the following teams:

Communication and Connectivity: This team builds systems and tools for stays, experiences, and beyond that support first class rich communications and connections among all members of the Airbnb community. We create scalable and intelligent communication tools, including messaging and notifications. The data team utilizes industry-leading tools, builds scalable data systems and applies AI models to provide insights and support all products in CnC.

Users, Listings, and Marketplace Data and AI: This team is a group of passionate machine learning, data, and analytics engineers responsible for creating new data products for our Guests and Hosts, Sales, and Finance. You’ll be part of the overall Guest and Host organization that is responsible for the Airbnb web and native apps used by hundreds of millions of our guests and Hosts.

Guest Data: Understanding how guests and hosts use Airbnb allows us to give them the best possible experience. The Guest Data team, part of the Guest & Host organization, is dedicated to developing top-tier tools, frameworks, and data models that offer a data-driven perspective on guest experiences on Airbnb products. Our primary stakeholders include analytics and data science partners, ML engineers, and product and engineering leaders involved in the core booking flow.

Community Support Data Platform: Community Support Platform organization keeps our hosts and guests supported throughout the entire Airbnb experience. The Data team is responsible for providing and governing trustworthy data foundations and metrics for critical data across experimentation, ML, measurement, product, and operational insights. Your work will empower ML and backend engineers, analytics teams, and operations teams while contributing to Airbnb's 10-Star customer service vision and initiatives like Differentiated Services and CSxAI.

Trust & Safety - The Trust and Safety team at Airbnb is at the forefront of creating a secure and trustworthy experience for hosts, guests, and the global community. Leveraging advanced technologies and proactive policies, they develop innovative tools to deter risks, uphold community standards, and safeguard user journeys—ensuring confidence and peace of mind for everyone on the platform.

The Difference You Will Make:

Communication and Connectivity: You will partner with a cross-functional team, including product managers, frontend/backend engineers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers, to influence and build company-wide product releases. You will develop innovative data systems to empower partners in making critical business decisions, enable product engineers to create scalable online systems with optimized user experiences, and collaborate with machine learning engineers to build AI/ML systems. Additionally, you will work with our global sales team to develop business tools that optimize their workflow, making a significant impact on Airbnb's revenue.   

Users, Listings, and Marketplaces are core entities to Airbnb and the quality of the data  fundamental to Airbnb’s product and business. We have been growing our Data Engineering practice in these areas to improve data foundation and better leverage our data and ML models in our product. You will help us define and realize our vision for trustworthy data across the company and our products, shaping Data Engineering for not just the Users, Listings, and Marketplaces team but also across Airbnb. We need to ensure every area of the business and our products has trustworthy data to fuel insight and innovation. Understanding the business and product need, securing the right data sources, designing usable data models, and building robust & dependable data pipelines are essential skills to meet this goal. 

Guest Data: As a Staff Data Engineer, you will help build our data strategy, develop top-tier data models and tooling, and provide technical leadership to a team of senior data engineers. You have the opportunity to influence critical aspects of the Airbnb experience, including Search and Checkout, while collaborating with long-standing xfn partners across Product, Analytics Engineering, Data Science, Infrastructure, and AI/ML. Your work will impact the quality of the Airbnb product experience for millions of daily visitors, making it an exciting opportunity for anyone passionate about data and its transformative potential.

Community Support Data Platform: Community Support Platform organization keeps our hosts and guests supported throughout the entire Airbnb experience. The Data team is responsible for providing and governing trustworthy data foundations and metrics for critical data across experimentation, ML, measurement, product, and operational insights. Your work will empower ML and backend engineers, analytics teams, and operations teams while contributing to Airbnb's 10-Star customer service vision and initiatives like Differentiated Services and CSxAI.

Trust & Safety - You’ll play a key role in developing and scaling Data solutions that directly impact Airbnb’s ability to keep our platform safe. From productionizing critical logs to improving Data quality for ML models, your contributions will increase the reliability, efficiency, and impact of our trust defenses—helping millions of Hosts and Guests feel confident using Airbnb every day.

A Typical Day: 

• Architect and productionize batch and real-time data systems to support various products and business needs.
• Ensure the quality, performance, and stability of data systems through robust quality systems and monitoring practices.
• Design and optimize data models for efficient storage and retrieval to meet critical product and business requirements.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product managers, engineers, data scientists, and business partners, to align on data requirements and develop scalable systems.
• Tune, productionize, and optimize data systems and machine learning models to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with partner engineering teams, including backend, client, data science, and ML teams, to ensure seamless integration and support.
• Contribute to the development of long-term data strategies and roadmaps, and influence the technical direction of data engineering practices within the organization.
• Mentor and coach team members, providing guidance and support to enhance their skills and performance.

Your Expertise:

• 9+ years of relevant industry experience with a Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree in CS/EE, or equivalent experience, or 6+ years of experience with a PhD
• Extensive experience designing, building, and operating robust distributed data platforms (e.g., Spark, Kafka, Flink, HBase) and handling data at the petabyte scale.
• Strong knowledge of Java, Scala, or Python, and expertise with data processing technologies and query authoring (SQL).
• Proven ability to design, productionize, and optimize batch and real-time data pipelines and systems, ensuring their quality, performance, and stability.
• Excellent ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams, including product managers, engineers, data scientists, and business partners, to align on requirements and drive data-driven decision-making.
• Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills with a focus on data quality, governance, and system reliability.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, capable of influencing stakeholders and conveying complex technical concepts effectively.
• Expertise in data modeling, warehousing, and working with relational (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and columnar databases (e.g., Redshift, BigQuery).
• Experience working with machine learning engineers to integrate ML models into data systems and products (preferred but optional).
• Ability to provide technical leadership and mentorship, guiding teams on best practices and contributing to the development of data engineering strategies.
• Flexibility and innovative thinking to evaluate and incorporate new technologies and methodologies to improve data processes and solutions.

Your Location:

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list. If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from.

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: [email protected]. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process. 

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.