Staff Software Engineer, Authorization at Airbnb

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 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: The Authorization Infrastructure team builds and operates Himeji, the authorization system powering over 8 million authorization checks per second that underpins every access to data and resources at Airbnb. Our mission is to make authorization reliable, secure, and correct by default, removing the burden from every team to solve access from first principles. We are a high-impact, platform-focused team entering an inflection point: as AI agents become first-class principals across Airbnb's product surfaces, we are defining what secure-by-default authorization looks like for the AI era. Our north star: secure every identity, every action, every agent, making Airbnb's AI transformation trusted by default. You will partner closely with engineering teams across InfoSec, AI Infrastructure, Privacy, ML Infrastructure, and Airbnb's product platform to shape the authorization foundation the entire company relies on. The Difference You Will Make: As a Staff Software Engineer on Authorization Infrastructure, you will own the long-term technical strategy and architectural direction of the authorization platform, defining how it evolves to support AI-era patterns including natural language policies, contextual access decisions, and multi-principal agentic workflows. Success in this role means advancing Himeji's core architecture northstar, securing cross-team alignment on AI agent authorization, and establishing Airbnb-wide engineering standards for what "paved path authorization" looks like at every product surface. This is a rare opportunity to operate at the intersection of foundational infrastructure and cutting-edge AI security for one of the world's most trusted platforms. A Typical Day: • Lead the design, development, and evolution of Airbnb’s authorization platform, shaping roadmap, architecture, and delivery while ensuring high reliability, performance, and operational excellence at scale. • Help drive the next generation of authorization for AI and agentic workflows, defining clear access models for agents and building systems that enforce correctness, least-privilege access, and end-to-end auditability. • Partner with InfoSec, AI/ML Infra, Product, Privacy, and Data teams to align on authorization standards and drive adoption across the platform. This includes integrating authorization deeply into data access paths, improving correctness, coverage, and developer experience across the platform. • Lead design and execution of high-impact, high-risk authorization initiatives across multiple teams and systems. • Set and uphold engineering standards through design reviews, technical leadership, and mentorship of senior engineers. Your Expertise: • 10+ years of software engineering experience, with significant time designing and operating large-scale, high-reliability distributed systems. • Deep expertise in authorization, access control, or identity systems, including policy models, permission frameworks, or trust infrastructure at production scale. • Demonstrated track record of owning complex, cross-organizational technical strategy: authoring foundational RFCs, building alignment across teams with competing priorities, and making high-stakes architectural commitments. • Experience influencing engineering standards beyond your immediate team, at the engineering council, org-wide, or across platform and product organizations. • Strong communication and technical leadership skills, with the ability to engage effectively across engineering, security, product leadership, and external partners. • Familiarity with AI agent architectures and the security and authorization challenges they introduce is a strong plus. 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. [OPTION 2 - position needs to be based within a certain geography, still remote] Due to the nature of this position, the successful applicant will need to be based in [ENTER STATE/STATES] to be able to conduct their work. Currently, employees can not be located in: Alaska, Indiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Delaware And Rhode Island. This list is continuously being updated, 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: [Upgrade to PRO to see contact]. 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. How We'll Take Care of You: 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. Pay Range$212,000—$265,000 USD