Software Engineer, Dev Tools

Airbnb

Software Engineer at Airbnb developing high-quality software quickly and reliably. Designing infrastructure to support AI-assisted development and improve workflows for engineering teams.

Posted 7/13/2026full-timeRemote • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesJuniorMid-Level💰 $162,000 - $190,000 per yearWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in building and operating high-scale, distributed systems with a focus on cloud infrastructure, particularly on AWS. Strong problem-solving abilities and excellent communication skills are essential for driving cross-team collaboration and improving developer productivity.

Highest-signal resume keywords

KubernetesCloud InfrastructureDistributed SystemsGo ProgrammingPython Programming

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Distributed SystemsCloud NetworkingDebuggingCost EfficiencyPlatform Thinking

Soft Skills

Excellent CommunicationProblem Solving

Tools & Technologies

DockerAWSEKSEC2EBS

Industry Keywords

Developer WorkflowsCI/CDOrchestrationSource ControlCode Review

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsDockerEC2GoKubernetesPython

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, build, and operate foundational systems used across Airbnb engineering.
Work on technically challenging infrastructure problems involving distributed systems, Kubernetes, developer workflows, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency, while partnering closely with teams across Developer Platform, DevAI, CI/CD, Cloud Infrastructure, and Security.
Build and operate cloud development environments and execution platforms for engineers and AI agents.
Scale Kubernetes-based worker pools, control planes, and APIs for parallel and asynchronous workloads.
Improve AirDev validation so engineers and agents can test changes quickly before CI.
Strengthen source-control and code-review systems as PR volume, automation, and concurrency grow.
Improve developer workflows across build, test, dependency management, and polyglot monorepo tooling.
Diagnose production issues across distributed systems, networking, storage, and orchestration.
Set technical direction and make high-stakes architectural decisions with significant ambiguity.
Mentor engineers on the team and raise the quality bar through code review and design feedback.

Requirements

What you’ll need

2-4+ years of industry experience with bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree, preferably in CS, or equivalent experience.
Experience leading and shipping large scope technical projects in collaboration with multiple experienced engineers.
You are a full-cycle developer: strong ownership and experience building and operating high-scale, distributed systems across the full software life cycle.
Familiarity with container and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
You have excellent communication skills - you can explain complex infrastructure tradeoffs to engineers at all levels and drive cross-team alignment without formal authority.
You are a strong problem solver and have solid debugging skills.
You are passionate about developer productivity and making developer lives better.
Cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes: You've built systems that run reliably at scale on AWS. You know EKS, EC2, EBS, and cloud networking (VPCs, load balancers, VPN tunneling) and have opinions on when each approach is right.
Platform thinking: You've built infrastructure that other teams build products on top of. You understand the difference between a working prototype and a platform - reliability, observability, clear contracts, and graceful failure modes.
Cost and efficiency: You treat infrastructure spending as a first-class concern. You've driven meaningful cost reduction through architectural changes, not just right-sizing.
Agent or async workloads (a plus): You've thought about the operational characteristics of async, autonomous, or long-running compute workloads - pooling, lifecycle management, isolation, secret handling.
Developer tooling (a plus): You care about the end-to-end developer experience. You've built or contributed to tools that engineers use daily and understand the difference between technically correct and genuinely usable.
Go, Python, or similar server-side languages. We're pragmatic about language - you'll learn what you need.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Our job titles may span more than one career level. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs and market demands. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.