Associate Counsel, Innovation and Thought Leadership

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. Airbnb’s Legal Department is a global team that works with diverse international colleagues around the world. The successful candidate will be adaptable, collaborative, and embody Airbnb’s Core Values, approaching complex legal issues with a balance for local and global perspectives while being adaptable to cultural differences and nuances. A genuine and demonstrated interest in Airbnb and a commitment to ethics, integrity, and fostering a workplace that emphasizes diversity and belonging is essential.

About the role

Airbnb is looking for an Associate Counsel to join our Commercial & Technology Legal team, focusing on intellectual property transactions and open source. The ideal candidate is adaptable, collaborative, practical, and business-minded, with strong judgment and a clear commitment to Airbnb’s Core Values. In this role, you’ll partner with teams across the company to support the infrastructure and products used by millions of people worldwide, helping Airbnb innovate and move quickly while safeguarding our IP, brand, and technology ecosystem. This is transactional and counseling work, not litigation or patent prosecution.

Responsibilities

• Provide pragmatic guidance on open source licensing, compliance, and contribution practices (inbound use and outbound releases), including where open source meets AI, such as model and dataset licenses.
• Work with Engineering, Security, Infrastructure, Brand, and other teams to improve open source policies and workflows.
• Advise on open source governance topics, including:
  • Usage & Contributing: internal use of third-party open source, “copyleft” risks, contributing to external projects, and CLA review.
  • Owning & Releasing: when and how Airbnb code may be open sourced, quality and maintenance expectations, community and code-of-conduct considerations, and project sunsetting.
• Review external-facing material (e.g., academic papers and articles, conference talks and decks, developer and community programs, technology-related blog and social posts) before publication, flagging IP, confidentiality and trade secrets, claims substantiation, third-party rights and permissions, and open source-adjacent messaging.
• Negotiate research and data agreements with public and private universities, covering sponsored research, publication rights, IP ownership, and commercial-use rights.
• Draft and review IP and licensing terms in intercompany and other commercial agreements.
• Advise senior leaders on what IP to release publicly and what to keep internal, review employee outside-work requests for IP and conflict concerns, and assess IP-contamination risk.
• Build and maintain playbooks, templates, and training to help other lawyers and business partners handle common IP and open source questions on their own.
• Provide practical legal advice on a wide range of IP matters for data science, engineering, and business teams, including licensing issues tied to product development, tooling, and infrastructure.
• Partner with Marketing, Comms, and colleagues in Legal, and liaise with international colleagues, to keep guidance consistent across brand, marketing, and technology narratives and across regions.

Requirements

• At least three years as an attorney at a law firm, in government, or in-house, including meaningful work in technology transactions and advising technical teams.
• Working knowledge of copyright, trademark, and patent fundamentals and how they apply in technology and product contexts.
• Experience drafting and negotiating IP and licensing provisions across a variety of agreements.
• Grounding in open source licensing and compliance.
• Familiarity with AI licensing, particularly where it intersects with open source.
• Strong analytical and risk-framing skills, with practical cost/benefit judgment in a fast-moving environment.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including translating complex legal issues for non-lawyers.
• Able to manage multiple matters, prioritize, and drive them to resolution with high ownership.
• Sound judgment on what to handle independently and when to escalate.
• Licensed attorney in good standing of the bar of at least one U.S. state or territory.
• Passion for travel and deep appreciation for the Airbnb community.

Qualifications

• Direct experience advising engineering, data science, infrastructure, or developer platform teams.
• Familiarity with common open source licenses (e.g., MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL/LGPL, AGPL) and typical compliance workflows (e.g., dependency review, notices, attribution, policy-based approvals).
• Experience negotiating sponsored research agreements and contracting with universities, public or private.
• Exposure to marketing and advertising law in external messaging, such as FTC basics, endorsements and testimonials, substantiation, and comparative claims.
• Deeper experience with AI/ML IP issues, such as training-data rights, model and dataset licensing, and output ownership.
• Enough technical fluency to sit with engineers, whether from a technical degree, coding experience, or hands-on work with ML or developer tools.
• Experience using/building legal self-service tools and agents.

Benefits

This role may be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

Pay

Pay Range: $157,000—$185,000 USD

Schedule

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. You must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity.