# Staff Backend Engineer

**Company:** [Airbnb](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/airbnb)
**Location:** Remote
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $212k – $265k/yr
**Experience:** 9+ years
**Skills:** backend engineering, AI, Machine Learning, Technical Leadership, mentoring, System Architecture, campaign optimization, audience management, bidding systems, budget optimization, creative generation, Google Ads, Meta Ads, roas, cac
**Posted:** 2026-07-22

> Staff Backend Engineer leading the technical strategy and hands-on development of Airbnb's AI-powered autonomous Ads Platform for paid marketing channels including Google and Meta. Architect systems for creative generation, bidding optimization, audience management, and campaign automation while ensuring brand safety and human oversight. Requires 9+ years software engineering experience and technical leadership.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- Set technical direction for the agentic Growth Engine — making architecture decisions on the systems that generate creatives, optimize bids and budgets, and manage audiences across Google, Meta, and other paid channels.
- Write and review code hands-on, establishing engineering standards for quality, availability, and system health across the platform.
- Partner directly with Marketing, Product, and Design to translate growth objectives into platform capabilities, and to define the human-in-the-loop controls that keep autonomous campaigns safe and on-brand.
- Advance the AI-assisted → agentic → autonomous roadmap, identifying where to introduce automation next and de-risking it through experimentation and staged rollout.
- Mentor engineers and act as a force multiplier — leveling up the team through design reviews, technical guidance, and a collaborative, inclusive culture.
- Collaborate with ML/AI and data platform teams on the models and signals that feed campaign optimization, and integrate deeply with the Airbnb product to understand the customer journey.

## Requirements
- 9+ years of experience in a hands-on software engineering role.
- Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree, preferably in CS, or equivalent experience.
- Technical leadership: hands on experience leading project teams, setting technical direction and strategy and mentoring engineers.
- Passionate about efficiency, availability, technical quality and system quality.
- Passion to level-up those around you through curiosity and fostering a collaborative and inclusive team environment.
- Proven experience in defining product/technical strategy and driving alignment with cross-functional leaders and stakeholders.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills with experience driving initiatives that span across teams, departments and leadership.

## Nice-to-Haves
- Hands-on experience with paid advertising platforms (Meta, Google, or similar) — you understand how the ecosystem works, not just the engineering surface.

## Compensation
- Base pay range: $212,000—$265,000 USD. This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

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