Staff Software Engineer, Trust

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two Hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 4 million Hosts who have welcomed more than 1 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 Community You Will Join:

Identity Team

Join our team at Airbnb and play a crucial role in enhancing transparency and trust within our global community! We pride ourselves on using identity verification as a powerful tool to build trust among our users. This team works with design, product, privacy/legal, operations, and other engineering teams to verify users are who they say they are and build trust on the platform. If you're passionate about developing cutting-edge solutions that drive positive impacts on a global scale, join us on this exciting journey to foster a safer and more trustworthy Airbnb community!

What problems are we solving on Identity?
Identity Verification Expansion
As advancements in AI and digital technologies evolve, traditional identity verification methods are becoming less reliable, making it crucial to enhance our approach. To maintain trust and safety on the platform and to stay ahead of industry trends and technological advancements, we must incorporate new and more effective verification methods. As part of our team, you will be at the forefront of developing the next generation of identity verification methods, addressing the growing need for robust methods that can adapt to new challenges. Your innovative work will empower users to confidently showcase their authenticity, ultimately enhancing security and trust for all users during their booking experiences.

Business Verification
While Airbnb started with individual hosts on the platform, as of today, a significant portion of our hosts are professional hosts who operate as an organization. Traditionally, our ID verification focused on verifying individual users and does not support verifying businesses. However, with the emerging regulatory requirements for businesses and to ensure that all hosts can be verified, we are investing in capabilities to represent and verify businesses as first class citizens on our platform. As part of our team, you'll be at the forefront of creating the next generation of identity verification, which will empower new user segments, such as businesses, co-travelers, and co-hosts, to verify their legitimacy to end-users. By introducing business verification, you'll significantly contribute to establishing trust and enhancing security for guests during their booking experiences.

Identity Misuse
As part of our team, your primary mission will be to enhance our existing systems by identifying and incorporating new user signals to ensure integrity of all identity verification. You'll have the exciting opportunity to collaborate directly with our operations team, gaining valuable insights into emerging fraud trends and optimize our detection strategies to minimize identity misuse. Your contributions will be instrumental in reducing fraud and preventing safety incidents, ensuring that our platform remains a safe and trustworthy environment for all users.

Vendor Optimization
Airbnb relies on numerous vendors to help verify the user identity on our platform. While our vendors are a critical part of our defenses, there are opportunities to streamline and optimize how we leverage our vendors to both reduce the cost and reliance on vendors for core capabilities. As a key member of our team, you'll take charge of leading high-impact initiatives aimed at unlocking substantial cost savings while improving effectiveness of our vendors. Your responsibilities will include streamlining integration processes, conducting consistent performance evaluations, and ensuring a seamless and efficient workflow. Additionally, we envision a future where ML, Computer Vision, and AI technologies play a significant role in reducing our dependence on external vendors. You'll have the exciting chance to spearhead initiatives to invest in and implement these cutting-edge technologies, shaping the future of our Identity pipeline. If you're excited about making a tangible difference by revolutionizing our vendor collaborations, and if you have a passion for exploring innovative technologies, this is the perfect opportunity for you to leave a lasting impact on our organization while driving progress in the realm of Identity management!

The Difference You Will Make:

• Work on systems at scale with large data sets, build and continuously improve applications for Airbnb product, business and operational use cases.
• Work collaboratively with cross-functional partners including software engineers, product managers, operations and data scientists, identify opportunities for business impact, understand, refine, and prioritize requirements for engineering systems, drive engineering decisions, and quantify impact.
• Hands-on prototype, develop, productionize, and test solutions and defenses to existing and emerging fraud trends.

Your Expertise:

• 9+ years industry experience
• Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree, preferably in CS, or equivalent experience
• Experience in building and scaling high-quality and high-traffic products (or systems).
• Ability to evaluate technical approaches and design product solutions to solve real-world problems.
• Ability to drive alignment, manage projects and effectively collaborate with stakeholders.
• Mentorship to junior developers
• Experience in fraud prevention or identity systems

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.