Senior Backend Software Engineer, Media Ingestion & Serving

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 Media Foundation team is at the forefront of building the platform that powers all of Airbnb's media experiences—from the photos that help guests find their perfect stay to the videos and animations that bring the Airbnb platform to life.

Joining the team, you will work closely with a skilled group of backend, infrastructure, and cross‑platform engineers passionate about building scalable, reliable systems that serve billions of media assets to millions of users worldwide. You'll collaborate across Airbnb on projects ranging from media processing pipelines and intelligent metadata extraction to cost optimization and platform modernization.

As a Senior Backend Software Engineer, your expertise will be pivotal in building and scaling the infrastructure that underpins Airbnb's media platform. You will design and implement backend systems that process, store, and serve media assets with high reliability and performance. Your work will directly enable product teams across Airbnb to build richer, more engaging experiences for hosts and guests.

You will have early ownership opportunities in areas such as:

• Building capabilities to trigger ML/AI analysis on media assets, store extracted metadata, and serve results to downstream teams—enabling richer, smarter experiences for hosts and guests
• Driving initiatives to reduce infrastructure costs through in‑house image transformations, storage optimizations, and vendor consolidation
• Amplifying the capabilities of our platform in serving images, videos, and additional media types, shaping the cutting‑edge media capabilities at Airbnb

If you thrive at the intersection of infrastructure and product impact, and enjoy solving complex distributed systems challenges at scale, this role is for you.

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services and data pipelines that power media ingestion, processing, and serving at Airbnb scale
• Build platform capabilities that enable ML/AI teams to trigger analysis workflows, store extracted metadata, and access media intelligence across product surfaces
• Work closely with engineers from product teams across Airbnb, understanding their media needs and building self‑serve solutions to address them
• Continuously optimize and improve the performance, reliability, and cost‑efficiency of existing media infrastructure
• Stay current with industry trends in distributed systems, media processing, ML infrastructure, and workflow orchestration frameworks
• Mentor and guide team members in their career development, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth

• 5+ years of experience in backend software engineering, with strong foundations in building and operating large‑scale distributed systems, and demonstrated experience with media‑related technologies (image processing, video transcoding, or metadata management)
• Experience building data pipelines, batch processing systems, or platforms that support ML/AI workflows is highly valued
• Proficiency in Java, Kotlin, or similar backend languages, with experience designing APIs and data models
• Excellent collaboration and communication abilities, with a track record of partnering effectively with cross‑functional teams including other ML/AI infra experts

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity.  for the up‑to‑date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list.

If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you…