Senior Staff Backend Software Engineer, GraphQL

Airbnb is a global platform that connects hosts and guests, and they are seeking a Senior Staff Backend Software Engineer specializing in GraphQL. The role involves orchestrating technical tracks, mentoring team members, and shaping the Viaduct platform to enhance developer experience and align with Airbnb's strategic objectives.

Responsibilities:

• Orchestrate and influence multiple technical tracks on the team from the core query engine and performance infrastructure to API ergonomics and reliability tooling, ensuring they interlock into a coherent, world-class developer platform
• Champion the evolution of Viaduct’s global GraphQL schema: guide the multi-partner steering committee, strengthen governance processes, and drive a long-term vision that scales with Airbnb’s growing product surface and data-as-a-service strategy
• Act as a multiplier for senior talent on the team: mentor teammates, cultivate technical leadership across Viaduct sub-teams, and foster an environment where every engineer can drive impactful initiatives
• Serve as a key technical voice partnering with product, infrastructure, and leadership stakeholders to align Viaduct’s roadmap with Airbnb’s strategic objectives
• Shape how hundreds of engineers and external open-source adopters build, ship, and operate GraphQL services by advancing Viaduct Modern and defining the next wave of capabilities
• Dive deep into Viaduct’s engine, API layer, build system and performance tooling, identifying cross-cutting opportunities to raise reliability, efficiency, and developer delight
• Pair with teammates to untangle complex challenges, providing architectural guidance while amplifying their ownership and growth
• Facilitate the Viaduct Schema Steering Committee: set agendas, arbitrate proposals, and ensure decisions reflect diverse product needs and long-term maintainability across many systems and use cases
• Embrace and be a role model for an AI-first engineering approach, using LLM-powered agents to generate and iterate on code while you focus on problem-solving, system design, and quality oversight
• Partner with tenant teams to troubleshoot production issues, design self-service APIs, and evangelize GraphQL best practices through docs, talks, and office hours
• Contribute to and demonstrate ownership of the open-source Viaduct project garnering feedback from the community and shaping our external roadmap

Requirements:

• 12+ years of backend & platform engineering designing, building, and operating mission-critical distributed systems at scale
• Proven experience guiding multi-year technical roadmaps: aligning long-term platform vision with day-to-day execution across multiple sub-teams or 'tracks,' and influencing without relying on formal authority
• Deep expertise in GraphQL, API gateways, and schema design/federation. You have led the evolution of organization-wide schemas or contracts and can articulate best-in-class governance patterns (versioning, deprecation, breaking-change management)
• Builder of developer experience & tooling: you treat internal developers as customers and champion self-service, documentation, and delightful DX
• Hands-on with modern languages (e.g., Kotlin/Java) and comfortable evaluating and introducing new technologies including AI-assisted development workflows (LLMs, code generation)
• Exceptional communication and influence skills, equally effective white-boarding with senior ICs, partnering with cross-functional leads, and presenting strategy to executives and the broader engineering community