Staff Machine Learning Engineer, Airbnb
Payments
$204-255k
More information about location
Community marketplace for holiday accomodation
Open for applications
Community marketplace for holiday accomodation
1001+ employees
Open for applications
$204-255k
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.
Role
Who you are
- 9+ years of industry experience in applied AI/ML, inclusive MS or PhD in relevant fields
- Strong programming (Python/Java) and data engineering skills
- Proven mastery of modern AI/LLM workflows — prompt engineering, fine-tuning (LoRA, RLHF), hallucination mitigation, safety guardrails, and rigorous online/offline testing to minimize training-inference drift and ensure reliable outcomes
- Hands-on experience with at least three of the following: PyTorch/TensorFlow , scalable inference stacks (Triton, vLLM), vector search, orchestration/MLOps platforms (Kubeflow, Airflow), large-scale data streaming & processing (Spark, Ray, Kafka)
- Demonstrated success designing, deploying, and monitoring production AI systems—e.g., RAG pipelines, personalization engines, generative content services—complete with drift/cost/latency monitoring, automated re-training triggers, and cross-functional collaboration that translates ambiguous business needs into measurable AI impact
- Prior knowledge of AI/ML Applications in the Payments domain is highly desirable
What the job involves
- As a Staff ML Engineer for Payments, you will be the catalyst that transforms bold AI innovation — LLM-powered workflow, real-time fraud defenses, and hyper-personalized checkout flows — into production systems that make Airbnb Payment experience feel effortless and secure
- You’ll architect and own end-to-end solutions at global scale, partner closely with product, software, and operations teams to turn complex requirements into elegant, latency-first services, and set the technical standard for model governance, continuous learning, and engineering excellence that elevates our entire payments ecosystem while shaping the company’s broader AI strategy
- Spearhead LLM agents, real-time anomaly detectors, and other breakthrough solutions that solve real-world problems and create product magic
- Collaborate with product, engineering, ops, and data science to spot high-leverage opportunities, refine AI/ML requirements, make principled architecture choices, and measure business value with clear, data-driven metrics
- Design, train, deploy, and operate large-scale AI applications for both batch and streaming workloads, ensuring low latency, high reliability, and continuous improvement via automated monitoring and retraining loops
- Mentor and inspire teammates, fostering a collaborative, experimentation-driven environment where cutting-edge research meets production excellence and every engineer is empowered to push AI boundaries at Airbnb
Our take
When Airbnb was originally founded, the product helped customers book air mattresses on people's apartment floors. Since then, Airbnb has had over a billion customers hosted through its platform. With more than 4 million registered hosts worldwide, it has grown into a major player in the hospitality sector.
Airbnb has been successful in disrupting the traditional holiday lettings sector. Before it existed accommodation was limited to hotels and bed and breakfasts, but Airbnb has mainstreamed the idea of renting out spare rooms or even entire homes. It has created a new sector of hosts purchasing properties to rent out on the platform and provides a level of flexibility and a range of offerings not previously possible for travelers.
Perhaps a victim of its own success, by 2022 supply of Airbnb-listed properties began to outstrip demand in some markets, as hosts overestimated the appetite for domestic travel. However, the company is still posting strong financials and has unveiled new tools to support its hosts in a tougher rental market. With a healthy bottom line and a huge user base, Airbnb is very likely to overcome the current market turbulence and continue its growth.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
25% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 10 rounds)
Apr 2020
$500m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Mar 2017
$447.8m
SERIES F
Total funding: $3.8bn
Company benefits
- Paid volunteer time
- Health food and snacks
- Generous parental and family leave
- Learning and development
- Annual travel and experiences credit
Company HQ
Showplace Square, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Brian Chesky
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously an Industrial Designer, studying at Rhode Island School of Design.
Nathan Blecharczyk
(Co-Founder & CSO)Studied Computer Science at Harvard, and had around 4 years of professional Software Engineering experience before founding Airbnb, including interning at Microsoft.
Joe Gebbia
(Co-Founder)Also studied Industrial Design at Rhode Island, and previously founded various design-related startups
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