212K–265K USD / year
Staff Software Engineer, Tech Foundations
BackendRemote — United States
Published on 2026-11-02
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About this role
Lead the technical direction and delivery of Airbnb’s Observability platform, which processes large volumes of metrics, logs, events, and traces. Build reliable, cost-efficient telemetry systems and query tools for engineers and AI agents.
About the company
Airbnb is a global online marketplace that connects travelers with hosts offering unique accommodations and experiences in various destinations. The platform serves individuals seeking short-term lodging as well as hosts looking to monetize their properties.
The team
Observability team
Stack
GoJavaKotlinOpenTelemetryvmagentGrafana MimirVictoriaMetricsPrometheus
What you'll do
- Design, build, and operate distributed systems processing tens of millions of events per second
- Scale the metrics pipeline and modernize log aggregation and storage
- Build a fast, reliable query layer with access controls, rate limiting, isolation, and caching
- Develop telemetry cost visibility and controls for teams
- Improve anomaly detection and automated correlation across telemetry signals
- Align roadmaps and make build, buy, and open-source decisions with partner teams
- Mentor engineers and improve design reviews, operational readiness, and on-call practices
What we're looking for
- 9+ years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems
- Track record leading a system or multi-team project from design through production operation
- Deep experience with metrics, logs, or distributed tracing at scale
- Strong coding skills in Go or Java/Kotlin
- Experience with Kubernetes, AWS, and service mesh technologies such as Istio or Envoy
- Strong written and verbal communication, including design docs and tradeoff analysis
Nice to have
- Contributions to OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana Mimir, VictoriaMetrics, OpenSearch, Jaeger, or similar projects
- Experience with time-series storage internals, high-cardinality data, or query performance
- Experience with anomaly detection, automated correlation, or SLO-based alerting
- Experience with telemetry cost attribution or large-scale cost optimization
- Experience building APIs or tools for AI agents, such as MCP servers
- Experience with columnar analytics stores such as ClickHouse