Senior Staff Software Engineer, Payments

Airbnb Payments team allows any two people in the world to frictionlessly exchange money with easy to use payments services. It is a core strategy to fulfill Airbnb's belongs anywhere mission. We are building a world-class payments platform that moves billions of dollars, in 191 countries, with 75 currencies, through a complex ecosystem of payments partners. We build and maintain our own in-house global payments platform because no solution exists with the global reach needed. As the platform grows we'll be adding new payment partners, global licenses, compliance and regulation controls, and building new payment experiences for our guests and hosts.

Airbnb's business grows rapidly year over year, and so does Airbnb Payments' processing volume. Payments Compliance is an essential part of the Payments organization. Without it, Airbnb can be subject to fines and even forbidden from conducting business in certain markets.

As a Senior Staff Engineer and Technical Lead for the Payments Compliance organization, you would own the technical vision and architectural direction across the full Compliance engineering landscape — spanning Policy Enforcement, Identity, Screening, Auditing, and Compliance Experience. You will ensure our compliance systems are cohesive, scalable, and aligned with broader company priorities as we navigate an increasingly complex global regulatory environment.

We are looking for a seasoned technical leader who can operate at the intersection of deep systems expertise and organizational influence. As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will serve as the connective tissue across Compliance's multi-year strategic initiatives — defining how components fit together, identifying where capabilities can be shared rather than duplicated, and ensuring we leverage platform investments from partner teams. Your decisions will directly affect how Airbnb meets obligations such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC), and sanctions screening while minimizing operational cost and customer friction.

This role extends well beyond the Compliance organization itself. You will partner directly with cross-organizational engineering teams, as well as cross-functional stakeholders across Product, Content, Legal, and Design. The technical choices you make carry direct financial and legal exposure — requiring the judgment, depth of expertise, and organizational credibility to drive high-stakes design tradeoffs across team boundaries.

• Own the end-to-end system design vision for the Compliance organization, setting the architectural direction for an engineering organization of nearly 30 engineers across multiple teams.
• Drive foundational architectural shifts, including the move from an account-centric model to a customer-centric one — rethinking how we model identity, risk, and enforcement across the platform.
• Lead the technical strategy for expanding KYC capabilities — supporting small and medium businesses, reimagining business onboarding and account structures, enabling KYC through third-party APIs, and extending verification to third-party payees.
• Architect systems that adapt to the evolving digital identity landscape — including new verification standards, government-issued digital credentials, and shifting privacy regulations — without requiring costly re-platforming.
• Ensure our technical foundations are flexible enough to absorb unforeseen regulatory mandates with aggressive timelines, without destabilizing existing systems or requiring disproportionate engineering investment.
• Partner with technical leaders across multiple organizations to drive alignment on shared capabilities and cohesive system design, reducing duplication and compounding technical debt.
• Work closely with Product, Design, Policy, Legal, Operations, and other cross-functional partners as part of a globally distributed team to define and ship impactful features.
• Lead and mentor engineers — both inside and outside your immediate team — raising the technical bar and developing the next generation of technical leaders within Compliance.
• Advocate for and drive systemic improvements by identifying patterns to streamline development, reduce toil, and increase technical quality and operational excellence over time.

• 15+ years of technical experience, with 10+ years of relevant industry experience in a fast-paced tech environment.
• Prior knowledge of Regulatory Compliance standards (AML, KYC, sanctions screening) and demonstrated experience designing and implementing those controls at scale.
• Proven track record of setting technical direction and architectural strategy for a large engineering organization, with the ability to drive alignment across organizational boundaries.
• Experience designing systems that span multiple teams and domains, with a focus on cohesion, reusability, and long-term maintainability over initiative-by-initiative solutions.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to influence senior technical and non-technical stakeholders across the company.
• Strong problem solver with deep experience operating and leading on-call for production systems at scale.
• Technical leadership: hands-on experience leading large project teams, making high-stakes design tradeoffs, and translating regulatory requirements into scalable system architectures.
• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent work experience.
• Proficiency in one or more back-end server languages (Java/Ruby/Go/C++/etc.)
• Deep understanding of architectural patterns of high-scale web and data applications.
• Be future looking — we might be focused on immediate regulations, but need to build for the long term. You think in terms of platforms, not projects.
• End-to-end ownership mentality that transcends team boundaries, with the credibility and judgment to make decisions that carry direct financial and legal implications.

Your Location:

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. Click here 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 what states you are eligible to work from.

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: [email protected]. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process. 

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.