Staff Software Engineer, Performance

Airbnb is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join their Infrastructure Performance team, focusing on optimizing performance across their extensive backend systems. This role sits at the intersection of infrastructure optimization and performance engineering, working with critical systems including Kubernetes services, observability infrastructure, and data pipelines.

The position offers a unique opportunity to make a significant impact on Airbnb's global platform that serves millions of hosts and billions of guest arrivals. As a Staff Engineer, you'll be responsible for analyzing, scoping, and delivering performance improvements across the entire backend stack, working closely with cross-functional partners and maintaining strong technical relationships throughout the organization.

Your day-to-day work will involve deep technical engagement with performance optimization, from profiling and tuning large-scale services to building distributed performance tooling. You'll lead continuous load testing in production, work on minimizing customer latency, and help modernize Airbnb's software stack. The role also includes evaluating and implementing the latest hardware offerings to optimize fleet performance and minimize infrastructure footprint.

The ideal candidate brings 10+ years of performance optimization experience, with deep expertise in Java and software tuning. You should be comfortable working with cloud infrastructure (particularly AWS), container technologies, and have strong skills in performance debugging and metrics analysis. This position offers competitive compensation ($204,000 - $255,000), equity, and benefits including Employee Travel Credits.

This remote-eligible position provides the flexibility to work from anywhere in the US (with some state restrictions), while still maintaining occasional in-person collaboration through office visits and offsites. You'll be joining a company that values diversity, inclusion, and belonging, working alongside accomplished engineers to shape the future of Airbnb's infrastructure performance.