Staff Software Engineer, Airfam Products

Airbnb is a global hospitality company that connects hosts and guests, and they are seeking a Staff Software Engineer for their Airfam Products team. This role involves shaping the technical vision for AI-powered employee experience platforms and driving engineering excellence across the organization.

Responsibilities:

• Shape technical vision for platforms that serve 10,000+ employees across multiple regions
• Drive company-wide impact by defining how AI and LLM technologies are integrated into the employee experience
• Elevate engineering excellence by establishing best practices, architectural patterns, and quality standards that influence teams beyond Airfam Products
• Transform prototypes into production by taking AI-powered innovations from concept to enterprise-grade deployment
• Lead the technical vision and architecture for Airfam Products' platform, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability across a multi-cloud environment
• Partner with engineering directors and cross-functional leaders to align platform investments with Airbnb's strategic priorities
• Architect and implement production-ready AI/ML-integrated systems, including LLM-powered features for OneChat and enterprise search
• Drive cross-organizational technical initiatives, coordinating with Infrastructure, Security, and Product teams to deliver company-wide solutions
• Mentor and develop engineers across multiple levels (L7-L9), conducting design reviews, architecture discussions, and providing hands-on guidance
• Define and evolve engineering best practices, establishing standards for testing, observability, and operational excellence
• Evaluate emerging technologies and AI development strategies, determining how to leverage innovations like agentic development and coding assistants
• Troubleshoot complex production issues, leading incident response and driving durable remediation through root cause analysis
• Balance hands-on technical contributions (code reviews, system design, debugging) with leadership activities that multiply team effectiveness
• Represent Airbnb engineering at internal forums and, when appropriate, at external conferences and industry events

Requirements:

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with 5+ years working on distributed systems at scale
• Track record of leading complex technical initiatives from concept to delivery at cross-team or company-wide scale
• Expert proficiency in modern programming languages such as TypeScript, Python, Go, or Java
• Deep experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or similar), including containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes)
• Strong background in API design and implementation (REST, GraphQL), with focus on performance and developer experience
• Demonstrated experience building and optimizing systems that integrate with AI/ML services and LLM technologies
• Experience mentoring engineers at various career stages and driving engineering culture through best practices and documentation
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills with ability to influence without authority across organizational boundaries
• Clear communicator who can translate technical concepts for executives and stakeholders while maintaining technical depth
• BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience building enterprise-grade internal tools and developer productivity platforms
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform
• Experience with large-scale messaging systems (Kafka) and data pipelines
• Background in frontend technologies (React, Next.js) and full-stack development
• MS in Computer Science or related technical field
• Experience with AI-assisted development tools and agentic development strategies