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 join their Media Foundation team. This role involves building and scaling the infrastructure for Airbnb's media platform, focusing on processing, storing, and serving media assets while collaborating with cross-functional teams to enhance user experiences.

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