Staff Software Engineer (Backend)

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 Global Markets Tech team drives the evolution of our guest and host experience across international markets through product innovation that accelerates international growth. Expanding in under-penetrated markets is a core pillar of our company strategy. To achieve this, we innovate at every level - adapting our  product to the unique needs of every corner of the globe so that every user across our 220+ countries and regions feels right at home.

The team partners closely with Product, Design, Data Science, regional stakeholders, and core platform/vertical teams to translate local market needs into durable, scalable technology that can be piloted quickly and then rolled out broadly.

The Difference You Will Make:

We are looking for a product-minded Staff Software Engineer (Backend) to lead the technical strategy and drive innovative initiatives for Airbnb’s international guest experiences. At Staff level, you will set a technical vision and drive execution of solutions that are highly available, secure, efficient, and designed to scale across many markets with the needs of the international business. You will work across product, engineering, data scientists, designer and cross-functional partners to solve these technical challenges and deliver high-quality products for Airbnb.

A Typical Day

• Own technical vision and lead effort to architecture, prototype, build and launch solutions for international markets initiatives (market configuration, localization services, partner integrations, compliance-aware experiences, etc).
• Lead complex, cross-team execution from design through launch, including team roadmap, technical direction, migration plans, rollout strategy, and long-term operability.
• Drive engineering excellence through reliability, performance, security, and cost efficiency.
• Influence roadmaps and collaborate with stakeholders across regions, such as drives alignment, resolves tradeoffs, leads through ambiguity.
• Mentor engineers both within and outside of the team.

Your Expertise

• Fluency in English is required. Japanese or Korean working proficiency is a plus .
• 9+ years of professional software engineering experience, including Tech Lead responsibilities (required).
• Proven track record leading end-to-end delivery of high-impact, user-facing products—from technical design and implementation through launch and post-launch operations.
• Demonstrated ability to set technical direction for a team or multi-team area (e.g., defining architecture, establishing engineering standards, and shaping a long-term technical roadmap).
• Strong product mindset: you connect technical decisions to customer outcomes and business impact, and you’re comfortable operating in ambiguity with an iterative, experiment-driven approach.
• Expertise designing and operating systems that are highly available, scalable, secure, and cost-efficient, with clear operational readiness.
• Strong experience working in cross-functional, global environments, driving alignment and results through influence across teams and time zones.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and develop engineers, raise the quality bar through reviews and coaching, and establish and drive best practices.