Senior Staff Engineer, Guest & Host (Host Listings & Quality)

airbnb, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 248,000 - 310,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Equity

Benefits

Employee Travel Credits

Job summary

Airbnb, Inc. is seeking a Senior Staff Engineer to set the technical direction for the backend platforms underpinning the Guest & Host marketplace. You will shape APIs, data models, and architecture to support AI-assisted features and scale across listings, experiences, and services.

You will lead the multi-year strategy, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and mentor engineers to raise the bar for reliability and platform quality.

Qualifications

• 12+ years in tech industry, including 4+ years as Architect or Staff Engineer overseeing large-scale systems.
• Strong product and platform judgment; design for product velocity and AI clients.
• Track record of multi-year technical vision delivery and platform consolidation or migrations.
• Deep backend expertise in distributed systems, data modeling, and API design for large-scale platforms.

Responsibilities

• Set the multi-year technical strategy and roadmap for Listings and Quality backend.
• Partner with AI Platform, Trust, Infrastructure, and Product teams to shape architecture and contracts.
• Design APIs, data models, and provenance to support AI-assisted features and agents.
• Drive platformization, generalization of shared capabilities, and self-service for product teams.

Skills

Multi-year strategy

Platform ownership

Backend architecture

Java/Kotlin

API design

Data modeling

Data provenance

Distributed systems

Mentorship

Communication across orgs

Job description

The Community You Will Join

As a Senior Staff Engineer on Airbnb's Guest & Host team, you'll set the technical direction for the backend platforms at the core of our marketplace. These systems store and serve listing data for Stays, Experiences, and Services, and they decide whether each listing is searchable, visible, and bookable. They also uphold the quality bar for hosts through ML, enforcement, and host guidance. As AI-assisted features and agents become first-class clients of these systems, you'll shape how our APIs, data provenance, and architecture evolve to stay stable, simple, and extensible. You'll partner with engineers across Guest & Host, Trust, Infrastructure, and our AI Platform team to define how listings and quality architecture fits with the rest of Airbnb.

A Typical Day:

• Set the multi-year technical strategy and roadmap for Listings and Quality backend, and bring the team and stakeholders along.
• Partner with AI Platform, Trust, Infrastructure, and Product teams to shape how Listings and Quality architecture fits with the rest of Airbnb, and set the platform contracts between them.
• Design APIs, data models, and data provenance so the platform can safely support AI-assisted features and agents.
• Drive platformization, simplification, and self-service: generalize shared capabilities, consolidate duplicated systems, and let product teams build within guardrails.
• Raise the bar on reliability and engineering practices, and reduce operational load on systems in critical business paths.
• Hands-on development, including design and code reviews.
• Mentor, guide, and support the career growth of individual contributors.

Your Expertise:

• 12+ years of relevant experience in the tech industry; 4+ years of experience in an Architect or Staff Engineer role, with ownership responsibility over large-scale software systems.
• Strong product and platform judgment. You understand how backend architecture choices shape product velocity, and you design for the needs of product teams, hosts, and AI clients.
• Track record of setting a multi-year technical vision for a core platform and delivering it incrementally, such as consolidating services, finishing major migrations, or platformizing shared capabilities.
• Deep backend expertise in distributed systems, data modeling, and API design for large-scale, business-critical platforms, using Java, Kotlin, or similar languages.
• Experience designing APIs and data systems for AI-assisted features and agents, including data provenance, validation, and guardrails.
• Excellent engineering skills and a strong operational mindset, with a track record of improving reliability and reducing operational load on systems in critical business paths.
• Strong communication and influence across orgs and platform teams, including AI/ML platforms. Demonstrated ability to set platform contracts, align stakeholders, and raise the bar for senior and staff engineers through mentorship.
• A proven track record of fostering a culture of Diversity and Belonging, within the organization and across the tech 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.

• bonus
• equity
• benefits
• Employee Travel Credits

Pay Range

$248,000 — $310,000 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.

A Note on Recruiting Scams:

Scammers sometimes pose as Airbnb recruiters to get money or personal information from candidates. A few things that will always be true for Airbnb’s hiring process: our open roles are posted on Airbnb’s Career’s Page at careers.airbnb.com, and our recruiters correspond only from @ airbnb.com or @ ext.airbnb.com email addresses. Our recruiters will never ask for your Social Security number, bank account details, passport, or payment app information while you are interviewing. We’ll also never ask you to pay a fee, send money, deposit or cash a check, or purchase work-related equipment (such as a company laptop) during the interview process. We encourage candidates to remain vigilant of these recruiting scams and not share sensitive information if you do not believe an individual is actually affiliated with Airbnb.