Engineering Manager, Control Plane – Distributed Transactional Database

Details

Airbnb’s Distributed Transactional Database team (within Online Data) builds and operates a horizontally scalable, open-source NewSQL database as the unified backend for Airbnb’s online data workloads. The team focuses on scalability, reliability, efficiency, usability and long-term platform viability for users around the world.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of software engineers on the Control Plane team to build software that makes database operations (deployment, cluster provisioning and restore, rolling restarts, configuration, scaling) reliable and automated.
• Own and evolve control plane services such as:
  • Orchestration logic that handles node lifecycles of the database’s storage, compute, and metadata management nodes.
  • Operator that automates cluster provisioning, operations and restore.
  • Configuration management that detects and auto-fixes unexpected configuration drifts.
  • Open-source developer experience (image building/testing, CI/CD, load testing and performance certification).
  • Blue/green deployment and rollback strategies for major version upgrades.
  • Work toward platformization: provide constructs and semantics for customers to self-manage databases while keeping KTLO and toil manageable.
• Work closely with peers in Online Data, Product teams, Infra teams (Compute, Networking, Security, Reliability) and external vendors.
• Define and execute on a vision and multi-year roadmap for the control plane area; stay involved in technical designs and decisions.
• Synthesize technical information and represent the team with upper management and external open-source communities.
• Attract top talent, mentor individual contributors, manage promotions and career development; nurture a culture of rigor and responsible velocity.

Requirements

• 3+ years of engineering management experience and 6+ years of relevant software development experience in a fast-paced tech environment.
• Experience building and operating distributed databases and services that are long-term and evolvable (NewSQL / distributed transactional databases).
• Experience with organization design for scaling teams.
• Expertise with a public cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their Storage, VM, networking, Kubernetes, and Security offerings.
• Experience or familiarity with orchestration, operators (automation for cluster provisioning and operations), configuration management, CI/CD, image building/testing, load and performance testing, and deployment strategies (e.g., blue/green and rollback).
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work across teams within the engineering organization.

Location

• This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed with your manager.
• Candidates must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity (some states are excluded; see Airbnb for the up-to-date list). If employed by another Airbnb entity, the recruiter will confirm eligible states.

Inclusion & Accessibility

• Airbnb is committed to broad and diverse talent pools and encourages all qualified individuals to apply.
• For candidates with disabilities who require reasonable accommodation during application or interview, contact [email protected] with your full name, the role, and the accommodation needed.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base pay range: $204,000 — $255,000 USD (actual base pay depends on experience, skills, business needs and market demands).
• This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

Additional Context

• The role represents Airbnb with open source communities and external alliance partners, and works closely with Online Data teams such as ORM and SRE to align charters and capabilities.