Senior Engineering Manager, Media Foundation

at Airbnb

📍 United States

USD 248,000-310,000 per year

SENIOR

✅ Remote

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI Communication @ 7 Data Science Distributed Systems @ 7 Engineering Management @ 7 Machine Learning

Details

The Media Foundation team builds the core platforms and infrastructure powering photo and video capture, upload, processing, storage, and delivery across Airbnb products at global scale. The team partners with Product, Design, Data Science, Trust, and Infrastructure to ensure media is fast, high-quality, and reliable.

As Senior Engineering Manager, you will lead the team responsible for Airbnb's media infrastructure, including uploads, AI/ML transformations, distribution, and presentation of photos, videos, and documents. You will shape the team's vision, guide organizational strategy, lead technical and operational efforts, and create an environment where engineers can grow and deliver high-quality work.

Responsibilities

Set technical strategy and architecture for media infrastructure across multiple teams, aligning investment with product and business priorities.
Lead, coach, and grow managers and senior technical leads.
Partner with Product, Design, Trust, and infrastructure organizations to shape a resilient and scalable media platform roadmap.
Champion engineering excellence and operational rigor.
Resolve systemic technical debt affecting reliability, performance, or velocity.
Retain, develop, and hire a diverse team of high-performing engineers and managers.
Own the reliability, scalability, and evolution of systems supporting media interactions, from host uploads through guest video streaming.
Lead and ship large, cross-team initiatives with significant business impact.

Requirements

12+ years of industry experience.
6+ years of engineering management experience, including management of other managers or senior technical leads.
Bachelor's and/or Master's degree, preferably in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
Deep expertise in large-scale distributed systems and experience setting technical strategy and architecture across multiple teams.
Media or content infrastructure experience, including ingestion, processing, storage, or CDN delivery, is a strong plus.
Strong product judgment and communication skills, with experience influencing senior cross-functional and cross-organizational partners.
Experience building cultures of operational excellence, quality, and reliability.
Sound judgment balancing short-term business needs with long-term technical and organizational health.
Demonstrated ability to identify, retain, grow, and acquire engineering and management talent.
Commitment to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within teams.

Location

This position is US remote eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed with the manager. Employees must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity.