--- title: 'Staff Software Engineer, Tech Foundations at Airbnb' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-tech-foundations-airbnb-united-states-6ktcpm62r91c' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-11-04' --- # Staff Software Engineer, Tech Foundations at Airbnb - **Company:** Airbnb - **Location:** United States - **Compensation:** $212k–$265k - **Posted:** 2026-11-02 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-04 - **Apply:** https://careers.airbnb.com/positions/8334372?gh_jid=8334372 ## 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: Airbnb's mission is to create a world where people can Belong Anywhere. Our community of guests and hosts rely on Airbnb around the clock to facilitate millions of stays and experiences per day. The Observability team builds the platform Airbnb engineers use to understand how their systems behave in production. We collect, process, store, and query metrics, logs, events, and traces from both backend services and client apps. Our metrics platform alone ingests tens of millions of samples per second across more than a billion active time series. AI agents are now consumers of this data alongside engineers: they query telemetry to write and validate code and to help debug production issues. We continue to invest in reliable and efficient real time system for both AI and human access. The Difference You Will Make: As a Staff engineer, you will set the technical direction for a major area of the Observability platform and lead it from design through production. Problems in front of us include: - Scaling the metrics pipeline (OpenTelemetry, vmagent, Grafana Mimir) while controlling cost through aggregation, sampling, and blocking unused metrics. - Replacing legacy log aggregation with an OpenTelemetry-based pipeline, and evolving log and trace storage on OpenSearch. - Building a fast, reliable query layer for both engineers and AI agents, with rate limiting, access control, isolation, and caching so agent traffic does not slow down incident response. - Giving teams self-service visibility and control over their telemetry cost: unit cost per team and service, and controls for granularity, sampling, and retention. - Improving time to detect with anomaly detection and automated correlation across signals. A Typical Day: - Lead the design and delivery of distributed systems that handle tens of millions of events per second, from prototype to production operation. - Write well-crafted, well-tested, readable, maintainable code, and contribute back to the open-source projects we run on. - Align roadmaps across Observability and partner infrastructure and product teams, and drive build, buy, and open-source decisions. - Explain tradeoffs and return on investment to engineering leadership in terms of reliability, cost, and developer productivity. - Mentor engineers on the team and raise the bar on design reviews, operational readiness, and on-call. - Help Airbnb engineers instrument their services and self-serve when debugging production issues. Your Expertise: - 9+ years of industry experience, with a track record of building and operating large-scale distributed systems in production. - Led the technical direction of a system or multi-team project end to end: wrote the design, aligned stakeholders, delivered it, and operated it. - Deep experience in at least one telemetry domain at scale: metrics (Prometheus, Grafana Mimir, VictoriaMetrics), logs (OpenSearch, Kafka), or distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, ClickHouse). - Strong coding skills in Go or Java/Kotlin, and comfortable working in unfamiliar codebases, including upstream open source. - Experience with cloud-native infrastructure: Kubernetes, AWS, and service mesh (Istio, Envoy). - Clear written and verbal communication, including design docs and tradeoff analysis for engineering leadership. Nice to Have: - Contributions to OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana Mimir, VictoriaMetrics, OpenSearch, Jaeger, or similar projects. - Experience with time series storage internals, high-cardinality data, or query performance. - Anomaly detection, automated correlation, or SLO-based alerting. - Telemetry cost attribution or cost optimization at scale. - Building APIs or tools for AI agents that consume operational data, such as MCP servers. - Columnar analytics stores such as ClickHouse. 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](https://careers.airbnb.com/) 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: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. 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 $212,000—$265,000 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](http://airbnb.com) or @[ext.airbnb.com](http://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. ## About Airbnb ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Airbnb operates a global marketplace for unique stays, experiences, and adventures, connecting hosts with travelers. - **Entity Type**: Public (NASDAQ: ABNB) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States - **Founded**: 2007 - **Founders**: Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk ## Core Business - **Primary industry/industries**: Online Travel & Hospitality, Software Development - **Target customers**: B2C (travelers), C2C (hosts), with some B2B (Airbnb for Work, business travel) - **Mission or purpose statement**: To create a world where anyone can belong anywhere, providing unique travel experiences and economic opportunity for hosts. ## Products & Services - **Airbnb Stays**: The core platform for booking short-term rentals (entire homes, private rooms, shared spaces) in over 220 countries and regions. - **Airbnb Experiences**: Curated, hands-on activities hosted by locals (e.g., cooking classes, guided hikes, workshops). - **Airbnb Adventures**: Multi-day, small-group immersive trips led by local experts. - **Airbnb for Work**: A service for companies to manage business travel and team retreats. - **Luxe**: A premium tier offering vetted, high-end vacation homes with dedicated trip designers. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: ~$77.8B (as of recent data) - **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue of $12.2B (based on available data) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Y Combinator - **Growth Signals**: - **From 2007 to present**: 1.5 billion guest arrivals globally. - **Headcount Growth**: Employs ~21,644 people, a **+30.6% year-over-year increase**. - **Global Reach**: Operates in 176 countries with a strong international team (e.g., offices/employees in India, Italy, Canada, Brazil, UK, Australia, China). - **Public Company Status**: IPO in 2020, trading on NASDAQ. ## Competitive Advantages - **Network Effects**: A massive, global two-sided network of 5 million+ hosts and 1.5 billion arrivals creates a formidable moat that is very difficult for competitors to replicate. - **Brand & Trust**: A globally recognized brand synonymous with alternative accommodations and travel experiences. - **Liquidity & Inventory**: Unrivaled inventory depth across 220+ countries, offering unique stays not found in traditional hotels. - **Live and Work Anywhere Policy**: A radical shift in work culture that offers flexibility and a competitive edge in talent acquisition, allowing employees to live anywhere in their country of employment with no compensation change. ## Strategic Focus - **International & Mainstream Expansion**: Continuing to grow its user base beyond early adopters into mainstream travel and new international markets. - **Product Diversification**: Pushing hard into "Experiences" and "Adventures" to reduce reliance on accommodations and capture more of the travel wallet. - **Leveraging AI & Technology**: Investing in AI (e.g., AI Engineer roles in Community Support) to improve the guest and host experience, search, and trust & safety. - **Return to Travel & "Live Anywhere"**: Capitalizing on the post-pandemic shift towards remote work and long-term stays with its "Live and Work Anywhere" initiative. ## Why Work Here - **Flexibility**: A ground-breaking **"Live and Work Anywhere"** policy. Employees can work from home, an office, or temporarily anywhere in the world (with approval). Compensation is not changed when moving within their country of employment. - **Compelling Mission**: An opportunity to work on a platform that creates connection and economic empowerment for millions of people globally. - **Diversity & Belonging**: Strong commitment to inclusion with numerous Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) such as Able@, Black@, Women@, Parents@, and many more. - **Great Benefits**: - **Travel Credit**: Quarterly Airbnb travel and experiences credit. - **Education**: Annual educational stipend. - **Wellbeing**: Subsidized healthcare, mental health support, family care support, and generous parental leave. - **Equity**: Competitive compensation including equity and an Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP). - **Culture**: Values-driven with a focus on "Be a Host" (caring, open, encouraging), "Champion the Mission," and "Embrace the Adventure." - **Work Model**: Supports a mix of remote, hybrid (be close to an office), and onsite work, giving employees significant control over their schedule. - **Talent Community**: A highly creative and collaborative environment with industry-leading talent. ## Sources 1. [careers.airbnb.com](https://careers.airbnb.com/) 2. [careers.airbnb.com/life-at-airbnb/](https://careers.airbnb.com/life-at-airbnb/) 3. [airbnb.com](https://www.airbnb.com/) 4. [linkedin.com/company/airbnb](https://sg.linkedin.com/company/airbnb) 5. 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