Staff Software Engineer, Payments (AirCover Insurance Platform)

Details

The AirCover Insurance Platform team builds the systems behind AirCover, including Host liability insurance, Experiences liability insurance, and Host damage protection. The team enables the launch and operation of insurance products across global markets and works with engineering, product, data science, and legal partners across Airbnb's hubs.

As a Staff Engineer, you will lead the design and evolution of core subsystems that manage policies, coverage, enrollment, regional rules, and experimentation capabilities. You will establish the technical vision and deliver flexible, highly available, auditable systems that scale with business needs.

Responsibilities

• Design future-state architecture that supports expanding AirCover to new regions and products without rebuilding for each market.
• Balance short-term launch needs against long-term technical quality.
• Lead the design of an experimentation framework for insurance offers, pricing, and placement, with trustworthy measurement of attach rates and downstream outcomes.
• Lead engineers inside and outside the team in building solutions and own significant technical scope through ambiguity.
• Engage with product managers, designers, data scientists, and legal partners to shape requirements and guide teams toward efficient solutions.
• Raise the bar for technical quality from design and code review through production operations.
• Mentor engineers and act as a player/coach who builds the team and drives collaboration across multiple teams.
• Apply emerging technology, including LLMs, where it improves automation and the experience for Hosts and guests.
• Write and review designs and code for highly available, distributed backend services.
• Make architectural trade-offs and scale services in a regulated, multi-region environment with strong audit, privacy, and data-integrity requirements.
• Analyze data to identify gaps in conversion and coverage and turn insights into product and platform changes.
• Partner with Product, Data Science, Data Engineering, Legal, and platform teams to drive engineering decisions and influence outcomes.
• Present technical and product deep dives to stakeholders and leadership.

Requirements

• 9+ years of relevant software development experience in a fast-paced technology environment, or 7+ years with an advanced degree.
• Expertise in backend systems and large-scale, service-oriented architectures.
• Real-world experience with at least one of Java, Kotlin, Python, Go, or a similar language.
• Experience designing multi-region or multi-tenant platforms with configurable, rules-driven behavior.
• Experience with A/B testing and experimentation systems, and using data to improve conversion or attach rates.
• Proficiency designing and operating high-performance systems with reliable monitoring and logging.
• Working knowledge of relational databases and SQL.
• Good judgment in balancing short-term business needs with long-term technical quality.
• Experience in insurance, payments, fintech, or other regulated domains is a plus.
• Hands-on technical leadership across multiple teams.
• Excellent communication skills for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

Benefits

The role may be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits. Airbnb is committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities.

Compensation

The base pay range is $212,000–$265,000 USD. Actual base pay depends on factors including training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs, and market demands.