Principal Software Engineer, Performance
About the role
Airbnb's Infrastructure Performance team is responsible for ensuring that the company's rapid growth does not compromise speed, reliability, or efficiency. This role is the most senior performance engineering role at the company, requiring someone who can set the strategy, define what "good" looks like, and build systems that make performance a default property of how Airbnb ships software.
Responsibilities
- Define and drive Airbnb's long-term performance strategy, spanning product performance, infrastructure efficiency, and business objectives for scale and growth
- Lead the architecture and development of performance profiling and instrumentation infrastructure, covering CPU, GPU, memory, request hot paths, utilization, and deployment events, making these capabilities available to all backend teams
- Partner with infrastructure teams across compute, reliability, backend frameworks, and AI Infra to ensure the fleet operates at optimal utilization
- Connect performance outcomes to business objectives and company-wide SLOs, and guide engineering teams in keeping the stack scalable and efficient
- Evaluate emerging hardware and software technologies, engage with the external solutions ecosystem, and advise on build vs. buy decisions in areas of strategic importance
- Mentor and technically uplevel engineers across the organization through design reviews, architectural guidance, and performance best practices
About you
- 12+ years of performance engineering experience in high-scale, high-growth production environments
- Deep understanding of how software and hardware systems interact at scale, including architectural patterns for performance-critical stacks
- Strong familiarity with public cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
- Experience with profiling and instrumentation tooling across CPU, GPU, memory, and distributed request tracing
- Demonstrated ability to define performance objectives and drive delivery against company-wide SLOs across multiple organizations
- You know how to move organizations, not just codebases: you've influenced teams that don't report to you, made the case for long-term investments over short-term fixes, and mentored engineers who went on to do exceptional work
- Strong communication and influence skills; comfortable driving technical direction with senior engineering and product leadership
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
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.
How We'll Take Care of You
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: $292,000—$365,000 USD
Offices: United States