Staff Software Engineer, Unified Data Store

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

The Unified Data Store (UDS) team is the architect of Airbnb’s global system-of-record. We design, build, and operate the mission-critical storage platform that powers every user profile, listing, reservation, and financial transaction on the platform. Supporting over 150 million users worldwide, our work is the bedrock of Airbnb’s reliability and efficiency. As a Staff Engineer in our Brazil Engineering Hub , you will join a high-impact group of technical leaders who value craft and operational excellence.

You won't just be managing data; you will be building a modern distributed infrastructure service that enables hundreds of product teams to ship features with total confidence.

The Difference You Will Make

We are looking for a hands-on technical leader who thrives on solving deep architectural challenges and leading through ambiguity. As a Staff Engineer, you will serve as the Technical North Star for the UDS Client Stack, ensuring our data access layer is seamless, high-performance, and future-proof.

A Typical Day

Define Technical Strategy: Lead the multi-year roadmap and long-term architecture for the UDS client stack, balancing immediate execution with systemic platform evolution.

Architect for Scale

Design and operate a high-performance data access layer that abstracts complexities like indexing, replication, and global consistency models.

Drive Engineering Excellence

Lead deep-dive design reviews and establish best practices for building fault-tolerant distributed systems across the organization.

Empower Developers

Act as a bridge between infrastructure and product, creating a unified interface that simplifies how engineers interact with complex data systems.

Collaborate Globally

Partner with UDS and Data Infrastructure teams globally to align architecture, drive adoption, and deliver high-impact solutions.

Your Expertise

Experience: 9+ years of relevant industry experience, with a proven track record of operating at a Senior or Staff level in a high-growth environment.

Distributed Systems Mastery

Deep expertise in large-scale distributed systems, including storage internals, networking, and consistency models.

Technical Leadership

Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical initiatives, influence architectural decisions across multiple teams, and mentor senior talent.

Platform Mindset

A passion for building high-performance infrastructure services that prioritize developer experience and system reliability at scale.

Communication

Exceptional ability to articulate complex infrastructure challenges to both technical partners and internal customers.

Innovation

A strong interest in leveraging emerging technologies, including Applied AI, to optimize data management and system observability.

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.

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 or @ 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.