Senior Staff Engineer, Payments Compliance at Airbnb

Airbnb

Remote, USA·7h ago

SeniorFull-timeJavaC++GitGo

Salary Range

$132,600 - $179,400 /year

Estimated

This salary is estimated based on similar roles. The actual salary may vary.

About the Role

We are looking for a seasoned technical leader to join Airbnb's Payments Compliance team. This role involves owning the technical vision and architectural direction for the Compliance engineering landscape, spanning Policy Enforcement, Identity, Screening, Auditing, and Compliance Experience.

Key Responsibilities

→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.
→Lead the technical strategy for expanding KYC capabilities, supporting small and medium businesses, and reimagining business onboarding.
→Architect systems that adapt to the evolving digital identity landscape without requiring costly re-platforming.
→Ensure our technical foundations are flexible enough to absorb unforeseen regulatory mandates with aggressive timelines.
→Partner with technical leaders across multiple organizations to drive alignment on shared capabilities and cohesive system design.
→Work closely with Product, Design, Policy, Legal, Operations, and other cross-functional partners as part of a globally distributed team.
→Lead and mentor engineers, 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.

Requirements

✓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.
✓Experience designing systems that span multiple teams and domains, with a focus on cohesion, reusability, and long-term maintainability.
✓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.