Senior Fullstack Engineer, Infrastructure

airbnb, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 196,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Airbnb is seeking a Senior Fullstack Engineer for the Internationalization Infrastructure within the Applications Platform. You will help build scalable translation workflows, APIs, UIs, and libraries supporting Airbnb's multilingual experiences for guests and hosts worldwide.

You will collaborate with Globalization, Data Science and ML, product and platform teams, and external vendors to reduce friction and enable responsible experimentation with AI-enabled platform capabilities.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of industry experience in software engineering.
• Strong programming skills in Java, Kotlin, C++ or comparable backend language.
• Experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems, APIs, storage and caching systems at scale.
• Experience evolving production systems with migrations, testing, observability, and ownership.
• Ability to collaborate across teams and communicate tradeoffs clearly.
• Data-informed approach to system quality, reliability, efficiency and user experience.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and ML/AI exploration is valued.

Responsibilities

• Design and build high-scale translation workflows, APIs, UIs, and libraries for Airbnb’s internationalization platform.
• Improve legacy systems with safe migrations, boosting reliability, latency, security, and cost efficiency.
• Prototype ML and large language model applications, turning ideas into durable platform capabilities.
• Collaborate with Globalization, Data Science, and product teams to reduce friction for users worldwide.
• Measure success by quality, cost, latency, adoption, developer productivity, and operational load.

Skills

Java

Kotlin

C++

Distributed systems

APIs

Education

BS or MS in Computer Science

Tools

APIs

Job description

Senior Fullstack Engineer, Tech Foundations

United States

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

Airbnb is a mission-driven company dedicated to helping create a world where anyone can belong anywhere. It takes a unified team committed to our core values to achieve this goal. Airbnb's various functions embody the company's innovative spirit, and our fast-moving team is committed to leading as a 21st-century company.

The Difference You Will Make

The Internationalization Infrastructure team, part of Application Platform, builds the technology that helps Airbnb deliver high-quality experiences to guests and hosts around the world. We provide reliable, scalable, and efficient infrastructure and tooling for Airbnb code, content, and stakeholders.

Our team owns three pillars of Airbnb's internationalization platform: translation workflows that move content from authoring through translation and delivery, guardrails that protect quality and reliability, and foundational libraries that make internationalization consistent across platforms.

You will help build this infrastructure, create paved paths for product teams, and enable responsible experimentation with machine learning and large language models. You will partner with Globalization, Data Science and ML, product and platform teams, content stakeholders, and external vendors to reduce friction and improve the global Airbnb experience.

A Typical Day

Millions of people use Airbnb in their preferred languages every day. As an engineer on the Internationalization Infrastructure team, you will:

• Design and build high-scale translation workflows, APIs, UIs, and libraries that provide consistent paved paths across Airbnb.
• Simplify legacy systems through safe migrations while improving reliability, observability, latency, security, and cost efficiency.
• Prototype applications of machine learning and large language models, then turn validated ideas into durable platform capabilities.
• Partner across Globalization, Data Science and ML, product and platform teams, and external vendors to solve ambiguous customer problems.
• Measure success through outcomes such as quality, cost, latency, adoption, developer productivity, and operational load.

We're looking for engineers who:

• Work autonomously, turning broad goals and ambiguous problems into clear plans, sound decisions, and shipped outcomes.
• Proactively find high-value problems, learn directly from customers and data, and connect technical work to measurable impact.
• Prototype early, especially with AI and machine learning, to test ideas, learn quickly, and invest deeply where evidence supports it.
• Combine strong distributed-systems judgment with the ability to deliver useful, intuitive full-stack experiences.
• Collaborate effectively while taking end-to-end ownership of decisions and execution.
• Act as owners and stewards of Airbnb's multilingual capabilities and the long-term health of the platform.

Your Expertise

• 5+ years of relevant industry experience with a BS or Master's degree, preferably in Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong programming skills for hands-on individual-contributor work in Java, Kotlin, C++, or a comparable backend language.
• Experience designing, building, and operating distributed systems, APIs, storage and caching systems, event-driven processing, or service-oriented architectures at scale.
• Experience evolving production systems through incremental migrations, testing, observability, and operational ownership.
• Experience collaborating across organizational boundaries and communicating technical tradeoffs clearly to engineering and non-engineering partners.
• A data-informed approach to system quality, reliability, efficiency, and customer experience.
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools and agents to accelerate discovery, prototyping, implementation, testing, and documentation, with sound judgment about quality and verification. Interest in building AI-enabled platform capabilities is valued; prior ML specialization is not required.
• Passion for globalization, inclusive user experiences, and building infrastructure that helps teams serve a worldwide community.

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: [e-mail] . Please include your full name, the role you're applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process.

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.

Airbnb values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Airbnb are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristic.

How We'll Take Care of You:

Our job titles may span more than one career level. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs and market demands. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

Pay Range

$196,000 - $230,000 USD

Reasonable Accommodations: We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities. If you need assistance, or an accommodation, please let your recruiter know once you are contacted about a role.