Senior Systems Engineer Tech Foundations

airbnb, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 164,000 - 193,000; Full time

Job summary

Airbnb is seeking a Senior Systems Engineer for the Tech Foundations team in the United States. You will own large-scale content systems, build author-facing tools, and partner with product, engineering, and content teams to streamline authoring workflows and analytics.

Role requires leading multi-workstream initiatives, writing clear design documents, mentoring engineers, and designing for reliability, security, and observability across the content platform.

Qualifications

• 5+ years designing and implementing complex systems end to end in integrated enterprise environments.
• Experience building and maintaining custom author-facing tools, workflows, automations, and integrations in an enterprise headless CMS (Contentstack preferred).
• Own delivery on projects spanning multiple workstreams, including undefined starting points.
• Depth in front-end and back-end development, preferably with TypeScript, React, and Node.js.

Responsibilities

• Deliver major projects end to end across multiple workstreams, leading a small engineering pod when needed.
• Partner with content teams to map and improve authoring workflows and translate them into technical requirements.
• Own the authoring platform by extending Contentstack with UI extensions and React apps within Airbnb’s Design Language System.

Skills

Systems engineering

Enterprise systems

TypeScript

React

Node.js

Data analysis

APIs

Knowledge graph

Education

BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Contentstack

Tableau

Grafana

Job description

Senior Systems 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:

The Content Products team, within the BizTech organization, delivers the technology that empowers Airbnb’s knowledge culture, drives connection, and scales support for employees and the Airbnb community. Our platforms power Guest and Host support experiences in the Airbnb Help Center and Resource Center, the Knowledge Center for our support ambassadors, and One Airbnb for employees.

The Difference You Will Make:

As a Senior Systems Engineer on the Content Products team, you will build the systems that power content management at Airbnb: advanced authoring capabilities, frictionless content workflows, analytics that improve content quality, auditing that meets compliance requirements, and AI-assisted experiences for writers.

You will own major projects that span multiple workstreams and often arrive loosely defined, and you may lead a small pod of two to three engineers to deliver them. You will partner with product, engineering, and content teams across Airbnb to meet the evolving needs of everyone who creates, manages, and delivers content.

A Typical Day:

• Deliver major projects end to end. Take end-to-end accountability across the software development lifecycle on projects that span multiple workstreams — breaking the work down, building the plan, and leading a small engineering pod where the project calls for it.
• Partner with content teams. Map and improve authoring workflows alongside content, product, and engineering partners; translate them into technical requirements; and deliver the capabilities that follow, including reporting, product integrations, and AI-assisted authoring and editing features.
• Own the authoring platform. Share the technical ownership of Contentstack, our enterprise headless CMS, with our engineering team — extending it with custom UI extensions and authoring apps in React that follow Airbnb’s Design Language System, building the integrations that bring structured taxonomy and knowledge graph capabilities to our support and knowledge surfaces, and improving content organization, security, and discoverability through taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and metadata standards.
• Design for the system “-ilities.” Design systems that satisfy both functional requirements and the -ilities — reliability, security, maintainability, observability. Identify and design for potential failure modes, participate actively in incident response, and implement corrective actions that reach beyond the immediate fix.
• Raise the technical bar. Identify and deprecate or improve low-quality code, services, and frameworks, and plan quality improvements into the team’s roadmap rather than around it. Give constructive input in technical design and code review that helps shape the team’s direction.
• Write the thinking down. Document technical solutions clearly, surfacing the benefits, risks, and tradeoffs you considered — then seek out and incorporate peer review and feedback on your designs. Analyze data, form hypotheses, experiment, learn, and iterate to improve Airbnb’s content authoring and delivery experience.
• Grow the people around you. Coach and mentor engineers inside and outside the team, give timely and actionable feedback, help onboard and integrate new team members, and contribute to interviewing and to Airbnb’s broader technical community.
• Work in an agent-assisted development loop. Direct AI agents to explore unfamiliar systems, prototype solutions, generate and review code, and validate changes — while staying accountable for correctness and quality

Your Expertise:

• 5+ years designing and implementing complex systems end to end in integrated enterprise environments
• Proven experience building and maintaining custom author-facing tools, workflows, automations, and integrations in an enterprise headless CMS (Contentstack preferred)
• A track record of owning delivery on projects that span multiple workstreams, including work that began without a clear definition
• Depth in front-end and back-end development, preferably with TypeScript, React, and Node.js
• Strong working knowledge of large-scale content data analysis, bulk updates, and reporting, including processing large volumes of data efficiently
• Demonstrated ability to build and operate high-performance, scalable, and fault-tolerant internal tooling, and to design for failure modes and operational requirements
• Fluency with agentic development workflows: comfortable directing AI agents to explore, prototype, implement, and review, with sound judgment about when to trust and when to verify their output
• Clear technical writing — design documents that make benefits, risks, and tradeoffs explicit — and a habit of seeking peer review
• Experience mentoring engineers and giving actionable feedback
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and helping shape problem definitions
• Ability to drive alignment, manage projects, and collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders

Preferred

• Experience working with structured data in enterprise taxonomy or knowledge graph platforms
• Familiarity with architectural patterns of large, high-scale web applications, such as well-designed APIs, high-volume data pipelines, and efficient algorithms
• Experience with modern reporting or analytics platforms such as Tableau or Grafana
• BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related field

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

$164,000 — $193,000 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.