Senior Backend Software Engineer, Media Ingestion & Serving

Airbnb is a global platform that connects hosts and guests, and they are seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer to enhance their media experiences. The role involves designing and implementing backend systems for media processing and serving, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and optimizing infrastructure performance.

Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services and data pipelines that power media ingestion, processing, and serving at Airbnb scale
• Build platform capabilities that enable ML/AI teams to trigger analysis workflows, store extracted metadata, and access media intelligence across product surfaces
• Work closely with engineers from product teams across Airbnb, understanding their media needs and building self-serve solutions to address them
• Continuously optimize and improve the performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of existing media infrastructure
• Stay current with industry trends in distributed systems, media processing, ML infrastructure, and workflow orchestration frameworks
• Mentor and guide team members in their career development, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in backend software engineering, with strong foundations in building and operating large-scale distributed systems, and demonstrated experience with media-related technologies (image processing, video transcoding, or metadata management)
• Experience building data pipelines, batch processing systems, or platforms that support ML/AI workflows is highly valued
• Proficiency in Java, Kotlin, or similar backend languages, with experience designing APIs and data models
• Excellent collaboration and communication abilities, with a track record of partnering effectively with cross-functional teams including other ML/AI infra experts