Software Engineer (API, SQL)

About The Company

Airbnb was founded in 2007 with the vision of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere. Starting with two hosts welcoming three guests in San Francisco, Airbnb has grown into a global community of over 5 million hosts who have welcomed more than 2 billion guest arrivals across nearly every country in the world. The platform offers unique stays and experiences, fostering authentic connections between travelers and local communities. Airbnb’s mission is to create a sense of belonging and to provide extraordinary travel experiences through innovative technology and a passionate community.

About The Role

We are seeking a highly experienced Staff Software Engineer, Technical Lead specializing in KV Stores and Caching to join our Online Data organization. In this pivotal role, you will lead the technical vision and strategic development of Airbnb's distributed storage and caching infrastructure. You will oversee the evolution of our key-value stores and caching systems, ensuring they meet the demands of high availability, low latency, and scalability for millions of users and internal teams. Your leadership will be instrumental in shaping the architecture, mentoring engineering teams, and delivering high-impact solutions that support critical business functions such as user profiling, search, machine learning, and pricing.

As a key driver of technical excellence, you will define multi-year roadmaps, guide system rearchitectures, and foster innovation within the team. Your expertise will help expand our platform’s capabilities, improve performance, and ensure reliability across Airbnb’s complex data ecosystem. This role offers a unique opportunity to influence the future of distributed storage and caching at a global scale, working with cutting-edge technologies and collaborating across multiple teams to implement scalable, maintainable, and robust solutions.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of relevant industry experience in software engineering and distributed systems
• Proven leadership experience in mentoring engineering teams and setting technical direction
• Deep expertise in distributed systems, multi-tenant storage, and infrastructure architecture
• Experience designing and scaling high-performance, business-critical systems
• Strong ability to influence cross-functional teams and build strategic alignment
• Excellent judgment in technical trade-offs, balancing short-term delivery with long-term maintainability
• Experience onboarding to and navigating complex codebases and enabling team development
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with a track record of leading technical initiatives

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the multi-year technical roadmap for Airbnb’s KV stores and caching infrastructure
• Lead the evolution of our KV store to support system-of-record use cases and expand platform capabilities
• Design and implement scalable, multi-tenant caching solutions to optimize performance and resource utilization
• Guide the rearchitecture of the KV write path to enhance replication lag and infrastructure simplicity
• Oversee frameworks for high-traffic, zero-downtime migrations between critical data platforms
• Mentor engineering teams, fostering technical growth and best practices
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align technical strategies and implement innovative solutions
• Ensure system reliability, scalability, and performance through rigorous design and testing

Benefits

• Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses
• Equity options and stock grants
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plans
• Flexible work arrangements and remote work opportunities
• Generous paid time off and holiday leave
• Professional development programs and continuous learning support
• Employee travel credits and wellness programs

Equal Opportunity

Airbnb is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, experiences, and identities. We believe that diverse ideas and perspectives drive innovation and excellence. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply. We also strive to provide accessible application and interview processes for candidates with disabilities.