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.
User Foundation is a foundational engineering team within Users, Identity, and Community (UIC) in Guest & Host. We build the trusted, unified, privacy-first user and business identity data foundation that powers experiences across Airbnb, supporting product teams (Account, Identity & Privacy, Profile & Community, Membership) and cross‑org partners including Trust, Payments Compliance, and Tax.
As Engineering Manager, User Foundation, you will lead the team responsible for Airbnb’s authoritative user data model and its online APIs, and entity event interfaces. The team’s work enables consistent product experiences, ensures compliance and data governance, and unlocks high‑quality AI/Data use cases across the company.
The community you will join
User Foundation sits at the center of how Airbnb understands and represents people and businesses across the platform. The team builds durable foundations, authoritative data models and interfaces, that many products depend on, and succeeds through close, day‑to‑day collaboration with partners across product engineering, data, and infrastructure. You’ll join a group that values strong engineering craftsmanship, and pragmatic execution, with an inclusive culture that emphasizes trust and thoughtful technical innovation.
The difference you will make
You will lead the team that makes authoritative user and business data the default building block for product development at Airbnb. Your leadership will:
- Define the multi‑year technical strategy for authoritative user data (individual + business) across online, offline, and events.
- Drive adoption of consistent source‑of‑truth interfaces so critical user data is read/written through governed systems.
- Establish and scale user data governance practices (cataloging, auditing, compliance-by-design, privacy-first defaults).
- Enable AI-powered experiences (e.g., personalization) by building high-quality, trusted, well-governed user data foundations that are safe and easy to use across AI products.
- Grow a high‑performing team that collaborates effectively across product and infrastructure organizations.
Your expertise
- 10+ years of industry experience with 5+ years in engineering management (or equivalent leadership), including leading teams delivering foundational platforms or shared services.
- Strong background in distributed, large-scale backend and data systems: domain modeling, service interfaces (APIs), event-driven architectures, and offline data pipelines.
- Demonstrated success driving cross‑org adoption/migrations with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.
- Experience building systems with scale, performance, and data privacy, compliance, and governance requirements.
- Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to define crisp technical vision, align teams, and influence without authority.
- Track record of inclusive leadership, talent development, and building high‑ownership teams.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with identity/user/account modeling at scale (individual + business entities, relationships, permissions, authentication and authorization concepts).
- Familiarity with data governance practices (cataloging, lineage, auditing, policy enforcement) and partnership with data platform and infrastructure teams.
- Experience partnering closely with Trust, Risk, Compliance, or Tax organizations, or understanding about compliance, data auditing, and data governance requirements in these domains.
- Experience evolving large systems through incremental migration strategies while maintaining product velocity.
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: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. 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.
Offices: United States