Staff Software Engineer - Hosting Services

Academic Key; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Airbnb in London is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to shape the technical foundations for Hosting Services, leading the development of new products and third-party integrations.

You will own end-to-end delivery across backend, APIs, frontend and mobile, influence architecture, drive engineering innovation, and collaborate with product, design and business stakeholders to deliver measurable value to Hosts and the business.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of software engineering experience in product-led environments.
• Strong backend engineering experience with large-scale services.
• Experience delivering customer-facing products from zero to one.
• End-to-end product ownership and iterative improvements.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical design and development of new customer-facing products and integrations.
• Shape technical strategy and architecture for scalable systems.
• Accelerate engineering innovation with reusable patterns and AI-enabled development.
• Own full product lifecycle from discovery to launch and iteration.
• Collaborate across backend, frontend, mobile, APIs and distributed architecture.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Product ownership

Full-stack engineering

APIs

System architecture

Frontend development

Job description

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way. The Community You Will Join What if you could help shape the next generation of services that make hosting on Airbnb easier, smarter and more rewarding? At Airbnb, we're expanding beyond our core platform to create new products, partnerships and services that unlock opportunities for Hosts and introduce entirely new business lines. Our Hosting Services engineering team is entering an exciting phase of growth, with ambitious plans to accelerate the development of new products and third-party integrations. We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer who can help us turn that ambition into reality. This is an opportunity to shape technical direction, build products from the ground up and rethink how we scale engineering innovation. You'll join an ambitious London-based engineering team, collaborating closely with colleagues in the US, with the autonomy to challenge ideas, influence strategy and create meaningful impact. If you're excited by solving complex problems, building products people genuinely want to use and turning bold ideas into scalable businesses, we'd love to hear from you. The Difference You Will Make As a Staff Software Engineer in Hosting Services, you'll play a pivotal role in defining and delivering the technical foundations for Airbnb's expanding ecosystem of Host services. This is more than an architectural leadership role. You'll be a hands-on technical leader, product thinker and strategic partner, helping take new ideas from concept to launch, then continuously improving them to deliver meaningful customer and business outcomes. You'll work across engineering, product, design and business teams to shape what we build, how we build it and how we scale our ability to innovate. Your Expertise We're looking for an experienced, product-oriented engineer who combines deep technical expertise with the curiosity, ambition and leadership to build what's next. Your impact will include: Build new products from zero to one: Lead the technical design and development of new customer-facing products, services and third-party integrations, helping create new business opportunities for Airbnb. Shape technical strategy and architecture: Define the future state of major systems and services, designing flexible, reliable and scalable solutions that balance immediate product needs with long-term technical quality. Accelerate engineering innovation: Identify new approaches, reusable patterns, tooling and AI-enabled development opportunities that allow engineering teams to deliver more products and integrations without proportionally increasing complexity or resources. Own the full product lifecycle: Partner with product and design teams from early discovery and ideation through development, launch, iteration and product-market fit, ensuring solutions deliver measurable value to Hosts and the business. Lead across the technology stack: Apply your expertise across backend systems, APIs, frontend, mobile and distributed architecture, remaining hands-on where needed to solve complex engineering challenges. Drive technical excellence: Guide engineers across teams in making sound architectural decisions, navigating technical trade-offs and maintaining high standards of reliability, performance, efficiency and user experience. Influence beyond your immediate team: Collaborate with engineering, product, UX, data science, data engineering and business stakeholders to align technical decisions with broader product and commercial objectives. Challenge what's possible: Bring fresh thinking, question existing approaches and proactively identify opportunities to build better products, move faster and expand the impact of our engineering organisation. Technical Experience & Capabilities 9+ years of software engineering experience , ideally within fast-paced, product-led technology environments, with a track record of delivering complex, high-impact solutions. Strong backend engineering expertise , including designing and developing large-scale, service-oriented and distributed systems. Proven experience building customer-facing products from zero to one , contributing to product definition, technical architecture, development and launch. End-to-end product ownership , with experience iterating on launched products, responding to customer feedback and improving adoption, usability and business outcomes. Broad full-stack engineering capability , with the confidence to work across backend, frontend, mobile, APIs and system architecture as technical challenges require. Strong architectural design skills , including high-scale distributed services, well-designed APIs,