Senior Staff Software Engineer, Marketing Technology

Airbnb; United States; Remote; USD 248,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Airbnb seeks a Senior Staff Software Engineer for the Content Platform to set the technical direction of our AI-driven campaign system, spanning a CMS, no-code tools, rendering infrastructure, and emerging agentic layers. The role requires leadership across multi-team surfaces with a hands-on approach when it matters most, delivering scalable solutions for millions of users.

You will partner with engineering leadership, product, design, and marketing to define long-term strategy, elevate

Qualifications

• 15+ years of hands-on software engineering experience with leadership at scale.
• Bachelor's and/or Master's/PhD in CS or equivalent experience.
• Deep expertise in backend systems and distributed architectures.
• Proven architecting and scaling of AI-driven systems in production.
• Experience with Java and/or Kotlin, GraphQL, databases, caching, and microservices.
• Ability to set technical vision and influence across teams and leadership.
• Passionate about efficiency, availability, and quality at scale.
• Experience in Marketing Technology or Growth platforms is a plus.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional influence across orgs.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical vision and strategy for Content Platform across teams.
• Resolve high-leverage, ambiguous problems spanning multiple systems.
• Lead architecture and design reviews and set engineering standards.
• Mentor senior engineers and act as a technical multiplier.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, design, and marketing to align strategy with business goals.
• Represent Marketing Technology in company-wide technical forums and drive best practices.
• Operate with organization-wide scope and impact while remaining hands-on when needed.

Skills

Technical leadership

Backend systems

AI-driven systems

Distributed architectures

Cross-functional influence

Communication

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD

Tools

Java/Kotlin

LangGraph

GraphQL

Relational DB

NoSQL DB

Redis

Microservices

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:

Our mission at Marketing Technology is to provide a state-of-the-art platform and measurement capabilities to enable marketing and product teams to engage with our customers effectively. Every day, millions of Airbnb customers are reached via our streamlined platform over comprehensive marketing channels such as Email, Push, SMS, Google Ads, Facebook Ads etc. We deliver substantial business impact by enabling numerous stakeholders across the company, including Marketing (Brand and Performance), Guest, Host, Airbnb Org, Policy, and more.

The Difference You Will Make:

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on the Content Platform team, you'll set the technical direction for the org's transformation into an AI-driven system that turns a marketing brief into a fully realized campaign in minutes, not months. You'll own the technical strategy across a complex, multi-team surface area spanning a CMS platform, no-code authoring tools, rendering infrastructure, and an emerging agentic layer, all operating at a scale where the content produced is consumed by millions of Airbnb users daily. You will partner with engineering leadership, product, design, and marketing stakeholders across the company to define multi-year technical strategy, resolve the org's hardest cross-team technical challenges, and raise the bar for engineering excellence across Marketing Technology.

A Typical Day:

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer on Content Platform, you will:

• Define and drive technical vision and strategy for the Content Platform org, ensuring architectural decisions scale across teams and align with broader company technology direction.
• Identify and resolve the highest-leverage, most ambiguous technical problems that span multiple teams or systems, often before they become visible to others.
• Lead architecture and design reviews across the org, setting technical standards and driving consistency in engineering practices.
• Mentor and grow Staff and senior engineers, and act as a technical multiplier by scaling your judgment and expertise across the broader organization.
• Partner directly with engineering leadership, product, design, and marketing/business stakeholders to align technical strategy with business priorities and influence roadmap decisions at the org level.
• Represent Marketing Technology in company-wide technical forums, driving adoption of best practices and shaping technical direction beyond your immediate team.
• At Senior Staff level, our engineers are expected to operate with organization-wide scope and impact, setting technical direction that shapes how multiple teams build and scale, while remaining deeply hands-on when it matters most.

Your Expertise:

• 15+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, including a track record of technical leadership at organizational scale
• Bachelor's and/or Master's/PhD degree, preferably in CS, or equivalent experience
• Deep expertise in backend systems and large-scale, service-oriented and distributed architectures
• Proven experience architecting and scaling agentic or AI-driven systems in production
• Experience with Java, and/or Kotlin, LangGraph, GraphQL, relational and NoSQL databases, caching solutions like Redis, and microservice architecture
• Demonstrated ability to set technical vision and drive execution across multiple teams and stakeholders, with a track record of influencing engineering culture and standards beyond a single team
• Passionate about efficiency, availability, and system quality at scale
• Past experience with Marketing Technology or Growth platform systems is a plus
• Exceptional communication and cross-functional influence skills, with experience driving initiatives that span teams, departments, and leadership

Your Location:

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.

Equal Employment Opportunity

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

$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.