Senior Software Engineer, Tech Foundations

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

Benefits offered by this job

Remote- USA eligible

Job summary

Airbnb, Inc. is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for Tech Foundations to help shape the service mesh infrastructure powering Airbnb's global platform.

You will design, build, and operate critical systems for service discovery, load balancing, security, and observability across thousands of applications. The role is remote within the USA, with occasional office attendance as needed; candidates should have 5+ years in software development, experience with Istio/Envoy, and a track record of

Qualifications

• 5+ years of relevant software development experience.
• Experience running large-scale networking systems.
• Full-cycle development with ownership and operations.
• Excellent cross-team communication.
• Experience leading on-call production infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver roadmap for mesh capabilities (routing, security, policy, resilience, multi-region failover).
• Set and track SLOs/SLAs for availability and performance.
• Build and mentor a strong engineering team.
• Coordinate with Security, Edge/Traffic, Compute, and Developer Platform on cross-cutting initiatives and standards.
• Mature incident management, post-incident learning, change management, and safe rollout practices.
• Plan capacity and investments to meet growth while optimizing efficiency and cost.

Skills

Large-scale networking

Distributed systems

On-call ownership

Strong communicator

Full-stack development

Tools

Istio

Envoy

Kubernetes

Cloud technologies

Job description

Senior Software Engineer, Tech Foundations

USA

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’s Service Mesh team sits within Network Platform and is accountable for the infrastructure that makes all service-to-service communication secure, reliable, and observable. You’ll work on a high-impact team that owns the designing, building and operating the critical systems that connect all Airbnb bank-end services, covering service discovery, load balancing, access control, traffic failover, and routing for thousands of applications.

Our team also cares deeply about culture. A happy, healthy team is a primary focus for us. We get stuff done - but are also supportive, honest, and we aim to have fun.

The Difference You Will Make:

As a member of the service mesh team, you will be working with talented engineers on cutting edge technologies of cloud native network stack. You will contribute to the key infrastructure components that connect all Airbnb users and services across the globe. You will have the chance to define and influence large infrastructure initiatives such as global traffic load balancing and disaster recovery, next-gen service mesh, cross-region gateways and edge security etc.

Airbnb is a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) end-user community, and we work closely with the open source community (e.g. k8s, istio) and peer companies to tackle cloud native engineering challenges at scale. You will also have the chance to make an impact on the industry and open source communities.

A Typical Day:

• Define and deliver the roadmap for mesh capabilities (routing, security, policy, resilience, multi-region failover).
• Set and track SLOs/SLAs for availability and performance; drive data-informed improvements.
• Build and mentor a strong engineering team; establish engineering excellence, code health, and operational rigor.
• Align with Security, Edge/Traffic, Compute, and Developer Platform on cross-cutting initiatives and standards.
• Mature incident management, post-incident learning, change management, and safe rollout practices.
• Plan capacity and investments to meet growth while optimizing efficiency and cost.

Your Expertise:

• 5+ years of relevant software development industry experience in a fast paced, high growth tech environment.
• Experience running large scale networking systems and software (e.g. Edge proxies, DNS, CDN, network gateways), experience working with istio, Envoy is a plus.
• You are a full-cycle developer: strong ownership and experience building and operating high-scale, distributed systems across the full software life cycle.
• You have excellent communication skills and the ability to work well within a team and with teams across the engineering teams.
• You are a strong problem solver and have led a team that is on-call for production infrastructure before.
• You are passionate about efficiency, availability, technical quality and system quality.

Your Location:

Remote- USA

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list. If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from.

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.