Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Trust

Details

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.

Community

The Identity Defense team plays a critical role in safeguarding Airbnb’s platform by ensuring that every user is who they say they are. The team prevents identity misuse, detects fraudulent and duplicate accounts, and enforces policies against underage use. They operate at the intersection of backend engineering, machine learning, and computer vision to deliver defenses at scale while minimizing friction for trusted users.

Responsibilities

• Solve identity defense problems including identity misuse detection, duplicate account prevention, and underage user enforcement.
• Train and deploy machine learning models for identity misuse detection and risk scoring.
• Develop, productionize, and operate ML models and pipelines at scale for both batch and real-time use cases.
• Integrate advanced verification methods, including biometrics and NFC-based flows.
• Collaborate closely with ML, iOS/Android, and web engineers to deliver end-to-end solutions.
• Work with cross-functional partners (software engineers, product managers, operations, data scientists) to identify opportunities for business impact, refine and prioritize requirements, drive engineering decisions, and quantify impact.
• Contribute to foundational infrastructure including secure data handling, image processing, model serving, and feature engineering.
• Shape technical direction and influence the team roadmap through long-term strategy and investment planning.
• Mentor other engineers and promote best practices to strengthen Airbnb’s engineering culture and foundations.

Requirements / Qualifications

• 9+ years of industry experience in software engineering, with a focus on applied machine learning.
• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• Strong programming skills (Scala / Python / Java / C++ or equivalent).
• Deep understanding of machine learning best practices (e.g., training/serving skew minimization, A/B testing, feature engineering, feature/model selection), algorithms (e.g., gradient boosted trees, neural networks/deep learning, optimization) and domains (e.g., natural language processing, computer vision, personalization and recommendation, anomaly detection).
• Industry experience building end-to-end ML infrastructure and/or building and productionizing ML models.
• Strong collaboration skills and experience working with cross-functional teams.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and driving projects from concept to production.
• Experience with test-driven development, familiarity with A/B testing, incremental delivery and deployment.
• Experience with computer vision systems (e.g., face detection, liveness, tampering detection) is a plus.
• Experience with the Trust and Risk domain is a plus.

Location & Work Policy

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. While Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. If employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you of eligible states.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base pay range: $204,000 — $255,000 USD.
• This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

Inclusion & Accessibility

Airbnb encourages diverse candidates to apply and provides disability-inclusive application and interview processes. Reasonable accommodation requests can be sent to [email protected] with the candidate's full name, the role, and the accommodation needed.