Airbnb
Payments
SeniorSoftwareEngineer-Payments
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“Senior Software Engineer -Payments at Airbnb. Skills: backend/platform engineering, AI/ML Foundation, observability for AI systems, model governance and safety guardrails, performance/cost optimizations, vector searchbedding pipelines. design and own core platform components that power AI across Airbnb Payments. translate ambiguous requirements into robust systems with clear build tooling and automation”
What You'll Achieve.
deliver trustworthy, efficient, and scalable AI capabilities; makes AI development safer; raise the bar on reliability, performance, and governance for models and agents in production; quantify impact
Industry & Context.
solve real-world problems; identify opportunities for business impact; understand, refine, and prioritize requirements for AI/ML models
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
7+ years of industry experience in backend/platform engineering (or equivalent), including ownership of production systems, programming skills in Python, solid software engineering foundations, Proven track record building observability for AI systems (metrics/logging/traces), with automated alerting, dashboards, and SLO management, Experience designing model governance and safety guardrails (prompt/version control, red-teaming, policy checks, approvals), Demonstrated ability to drive performance/cost optimizations (profiling, batching, caching, quantization, autoscaling) in high-traffic environments, Practical familiarity with vector searchbedding pipelines (indexing strategies, consistency, reindexing, retention)
Nice to Have
Good to have experience with AI frameworks (Langraph, Strand etc), Good to have experience with orchestration (Airflow/Kubeflow), Good to have experience with streaming/processing (Kafka/Spark/Ray)
What You'll Do.
design and own core platform components that power AI across Airbnb Payments
translate ambiguous requirements into robust systems with clear build tooling and automation
and support the development of novel ML systems
and performance optimizations to solve real-world problems
Hands-on productionize and operate AI/ML solution and pipelines at scale
including both batch and real-time use cases
challenge and grow enthusiastic
collaborative AI/ML culture within the organization
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
partner with product, infra, data science, and operations; Work collaboratively with cross-functional partners including software engineers, product managers, operations and data scientists
Process & Methodology
prioritize requirements for AI/ML models, drive engineering decisions
Full Job Description
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. The Community You Will Join: The Payments AI/ML Foundation team builds the shared platforms, services, and guardrails that enable product and data teams across Airbnb Payments to deliver trustworthy, efficient, and scalable AI capabilities. We provide the infrastructure for training, evaluation, inference, and operations - covering model lifecycle, observability, governance, cost/latency optimization, and developer ergonomics - so teams in Payments can move quickly in AI innovation with confidence. The Difference You Will Make: As a Senior Software Engineer on Payments AI/ML Foundation, you will design and own core platform components that power AI across Airbnb Payments. You will partner with product, infra, data science, and operations to translate ambiguous requirements into robust systems with clear SLAs; build tooling and automation that makes AI development safer and faster; and raise the bar on reliability, performance, and governance for models and agents in production. A Typical Day: Envision, champion, and support the development of novel ML systems, product integrations, and performance optimizations to solve real-world problems. Work collaboratively with cross-functional partners including software engineers, product managers, operations and data scientists, identify opportunities for business impact, understand, refine, and prioritize requirements for AI/ML models, drive engineering decisions, and quantify impact. Hands-on productionize and operate AI/ML solution and pipelines at scale, including both batch and real-time use cases. Lead, mentor, challenge and grow enthusiastic, collaborative AI/ML
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