Staff Software Engineer

Who you are

• If you're excited by solving complex problems, building products people genuinely want to use and turning bold ideas into scalable businesses, we'd love to hear from you
• We're looking for an experienced, product-oriented engineer who combines deep technical expertise with the curiosity, ambition and leadership to build what's next
• 9+ years of software engineering experience, ideally within fast-paced, product-led technology environments, with a track record of delivering complex, high-impact solutions
• Strong backend engineering expertise, including designing and developing large-scale, service-oriented and distributed systems
• Proven experience building customer-facing products from zero to one, contributing to product definition, technical architecture, development and launch
• End-to-end product ownership, with experience iterating on launched products, responding to customer feedback and improving adoption, usability and business outcomes
• Broad full-stack engineering capability, with the confidence to work across backend, frontend, mobile, APIs and system architecture as technical challenges require
• Strong architectural design skills, including high-scale distributed services, well-designed APIs, data pipelines, efficient algorithms and reliable integrations
• Sound technical judgment, with the ability to balance speed of delivery, experimentation, scalability and long-term engineering quality
• A product-first engineering mindset, with an understanding that technical

What the job involves

• What if you could help shape the next generation of services that make hosting on Airbnb easier, smarter and more rewarding?
• At Airbnb, we're expanding beyond our core platform to create new products, partnerships and services that unlock opportunities for Hosts and introduce entirely new business lines
• Our Hosting Services engineering team is entering an exciting phase of growth, with ambitious plans to accelerate the development of new products and third-party integrations. We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer who can help us turn that ambition into reality
• This is an opportunity to shape technical direction, build products from the ground up and rethink how we scale engineering innovation. You'll join an ambitious London-based engineering team, collaborating closely with colleagues in the US, with the autonomy to challenge ideas, influence strategy and create meaningful impact
• As a Staff Software Engineer in Hosting Services, you'll play a pivotal role in defining and delivering the technical foundations for Airbnb's expanding ecosystem of Host services
• This is more than an architectural leadership role. You'll be a hands-on technical leader, product thinker and strategic partner, helping take new ideas from concept to launch, then continuously improving them to deliver meaningful customer and business outcomes
• You'll work across engineering, product, design and business teams to shape what we build, how we build it and how we scale our ability to innovate
• Build new products from zero to one: Lead the technical design and development of new customer-facing products, services and third-party integrations, helping create new business opportunities for Airbnb
• Shape technical strategy and architecture: Define the future state of major systems and services, designing flexible, reliable and scalable solutions that balance immediate product needs with long-term technical quality
• Accelerate engineering innovation: Identify new approaches, reusable patterns, tooling and AI-enabled development opportunities that allow engineering teams to deliver more products and integrations without proportionally increasing complexity or resources
• Own the full product lifecycle: Partner with product and design teams from early discovery and ideation through development, launch, iteration and product-market fit, ensuring solutions deliver measurable value to Hosts and the business
• Lead across the technology stack: Apply your expertise across backend systems, APIs, frontend, mobile and distributed architecture, remaining hands-on where needed to solve complex engineering challenges
• Drive technical excellence: Guide engineers across teams in making sound architectural decisions, navigating technical trade-offs and maintaining high standards of reliability, performance, efficiency and user experience
• Influence beyond your immediate team: Collaborate with engineering, product, UX, data science, data engineering and business stakeholders to align technical decisions with broader product and commercial objectives
• Challenge what's possible: Bring fresh thinking, question existing approaches and proactively identify opportunities to build better products, move faster and expand the impact of our engineering organisation

Benefits

• Paid volunteer time
• Health food and snacks
• Generous parental and family leave
• Learning and development
• Annual travel and experiences credit