[Hiring] Senior Backend Software Engineer @Airbnb

Role Description

The Media Foundation team is at the forefront of building the platform that powers all of Airbnb's media experiences—from the photos that help guests find their perfect stay to the videos and animations that bring the Airbnb platform to life.

As a Senior Backend Software Engineer, your expertise will be pivotal in building and scaling the infrastructure that underpins Airbnb's media platform. You will design and implement backend systems that process, store, and serve media assets with high reliability and performance. Your work will directly enable product teams across Airbnb to build richer, more engaging experiences for hosts and guests.

You will have early ownership opportunities in areas such as:

• Building capabilities to trigger ML/AI analysis on media assets, store extracted metadata, and serve results to downstream teams—enabling richer, smarter experiences for hosts and guests.
• Driving initiatives to reduce infrastructure costs through in-house image transformations, storage optimizations, and vendor consolidation.
• Amplifying the capabilities of our platform in serving images, videos, and additional media types, shaping the cutting-edge media capabilities at Airbnb.

If you thrive at the intersection of infrastructure and product impact, and enjoy solving complex distributed systems challenges at scale, this role is for you.

A typical day includes:

• Designing, developing, and maintaining backend services and data pipelines that power media ingestion, processing, and serving at Airbnb scale.
• Building platform capabilities that enable ML/AI teams to trigger analysis workflows, store extracted metadata, and access media intelligence across product surfaces.
• Working closely with engineers from product teams across Airbnb, understanding their media needs and building self-serve solutions to address them.
• Continuously optimizing and improving the performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of existing media infrastructure.
• Staying current with industry trends in distributed systems, media processing, ML infrastructure, and workflow orchestration frameworks.
• Mentoring and guiding team members in their career development, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in backend software engineering, with strong foundations in building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Demonstrated experience with media-related technologies (image processing, video transcoding, or metadata management).
• Experience building data pipelines, batch processing systems, or platforms that support ML/AI workflows is highly valued.
• Proficiency in Java, Kotlin, or similar backend languages, with experience designing APIs and data models.
• Excellent collaboration and communication abilities, with a track record of partnering effectively with cross-functional teams including other ML/AI infra experts.

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.

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: [email protected] . 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.

Benefits

• Base pay range: $191,000 — $223,000 USD.
• This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.