Senior Staff Data Engineer

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 Data Stewardship team is a group of passionate data practitioners with a diverse background in analytics, data modeling, governance, compliance, and scaled data quality. We are responsible for ensuring Airbnb is meeting its compliance obligations across our data ecosystem and ensuring data consumers are able to easily identify the best data for their needs. We support the pipelines, programs, and policy-bodies that make this possible. You’ll be part of the overall Data Infrastructure organization that is responsible for online and offline data infrastructure across the company, and the components that transition data between these environments. 

The Difference You Will Make

• Set the North Star: you will define the multi-year vision for Data Governance and Data Quality that scales with our global business and evolving AI landscape.
• Organizational Influence: Act as a primary consultant for executive leadership on data governance, ensuring that compliance and stewardship are integrated into the data product lifecycle from day one.

A Typical Day 

• Architect Ecosystems: Lead the design of overarching data architectures that don't just solve today’s batch needs but anticipate future real-time and AI-driven requirements.
• Scale Best Practices: Rather than just 'ensuring quality,' you will define the best practices, tooling, and culture that enable data organizations to maintain high-quality data autonomously.
• Policy Stewardship: Lead cross-functional task forces (Infosec, Legal, Privacy) to navigate complex regulatory landscapes (like GDPR or AI Act) and translate them into engineering requirements.
• Mentor and Multiply: Coach Senior and Staff engineers across the organization on data best practices, fostering a community of excellence.

Your Expertise 

• Leadership Track: 12+ years of industry experience, with a proven track record of leading large-scale data initiatives across multiple departments or business units.
• System Design at Scale: Demonstrated expertise in designing and evolving complex data ecosystems within complex, high-volume environments (e.g., Airbnb ).
• Strategic Collaboration: Experience influencing product and business strategy by leveraging data integrity as a competitive advantage.
• Tech Stack Mastery: Deep expertise in the Java/Scala/Spark ecosystem (preferably with knowledge of S3 and Iceberg) with the ability to vet and introduce proven industry approaches and new technologies to the stack. Strong knowledge of relational databases and query authoring (SQL).
• Change Management: Strong ability to drive cultural shifts regarding data ownership and quality across an entire engineering organization.

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 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: View email address on us.fitly.work . 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.

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

$248,000—$310,000 USD