Senior Software Engineer, Distributed Transactional Database

at Airbnb
📍 United States
USD 191,000-225,000 per year
SENIOR
✅ Hybrid

SCRAPED

Used Tools & Technologies

Not specified

Required Skills & Competences ?

Security @ 4 Chef @ 4 Go @ 4 Kubernetes @ 4 MySQL @ 4 Terraform @ 4 GCP @ 4 Java @ 4 Distributed Systems @ 4 AWS @ 4 Azure @ 4 Communication @ 7 Helm @ 4 Networking @ 4 Rust @ 4 Debugging @ 4

Details

Airbnb’s Transactional Storage Services team within the Online Data organization is building a source-of-truth, open-source NewSQL database running on stateful Kubernetes that hosts critical Airbnb user, listing and financial data. The team focuses on reliability, scalability, efficiency, availability, security and platform evolution, and builds an online data ecosystem that unifies storage backends such as MySQL, KVStore and GraphDB.

Responsibilities

  • Design, build and operate a modern distributed NewSQL database and the surrounding platform ecosystem (monitoring, permissions, service discovery integrations, etc.).
  • Design and automate critical database operations: centralized and hierarchical config management, fully automated image building and release certification for major version upgrades, zero-downtime Blue/Green deployment.
  • Define and deliver a generalized database platform for partner teams (KVStore, ORM, MySQL).
  • Deliver zero-downtime forward and reverse replication pipelines with near-real-time consistency between transactional databases and implement robust failover/failback mechanisms for correctness and continuity during outages.
  • Conduct case studies of disaster recovery scenarios and design/implement backup & restore solutions (cross-region resiliency, Point-in-Time Recovery, ransomware policy, cluster topology and restore logic).
  • Work closely with other engineers to decompose large-scale distributed systems, define monitoring metrics, analyze failure scenarios and debug issues efficiently.

Requirements

  • 5+ years of relevant industry experience.
  • Solid understanding of distributed systems and infrastructure fundamentals.
  • Experience owning and deep-diving into a complex codebase.
  • Strong software engineering skills: writing clean, readable, testable and maintainable code.
  • Ability to decompose large-scale distributed systems and determine monitoring metrics, failure scenarios and efficient debugging approaches.
  • Strong collaboration and communication skills suitable for a remote-working environment.
  • Expertise with a public cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their Storage, VM, Networking and Security offerings (examples referenced: external-dns, Route 53, EBS).

Nice to haves:

  • Experience in Java, Go, Rust or C++.
  • Experience writing robust automation frameworks and tooling.
  • Experience with Kubernetes (including stateful workloads), operator pattern, Helm, and Infrastructure as Code tools such as Chef and Terraform.

Location & Work Model

  • This position is US - Remote Eligible. Candidates must live in a U.S. state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites as agreed with the manager.

Compensation & Benefits

  • Base pay range: $191,000 — $225,000 USD.
  • This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

Inclusion

  • Airbnb is committed to inclusion and belonging and encourages applications from all qualified individuals. Reasonable accommodation in the application and interview process is available for candidates with disabilities ([email protected]).