Staff Software Engineer, Knowledge Graph

Details

Airbnb’s Knowledge Graph team builds core data infrastructure that extracts, organizes, and serves structured knowledge across Airbnb — including places, listings, users, and relationships — to power search, recommendations, and personalization. This is a hands-on, high-impact Staff Software Engineer role focused on scalable data ingestion & consumption and system performance in production environments.

Responsibilities

• Design and build robust data infrastructure for both batch and near-real-time ingestion into a graph platform.
• Develop and tune system performance for low-latency, high-throughput access to structured data.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with infra, ML, and product teams to align technical solutions with business goals.
• Debug complex production issues and continuously improve system reliability, observability, and performance.
• Lead design reviews and mentor engineers across the team.

Requirements

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 9+ years of industry experience with a BS/MS (or 6+ years with a PhD).
• Proven success building and maintaining high-scale distributed systems, particularly in data infrastructure, databases, or streaming platforms.
• Hands-on experience with technologies such as Kafka, Flink, Spark, or similar for data ingestion and processing.
• Deep understanding of data modeling, storage performance, and system optimization.
• Strong system design and debugging skills, with a focus on real-world reliability and scalability.

Location & Work Model

• 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 US state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity (some states may be excluded).

Compensation & Benefits

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

Inclusion & Accessibility

• Airbnb is committed to inclusion and encourages all qualified individuals to apply. Reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities are available by contacting [email protected].