Engineering Manager, Payments

Job Overview

As an Engineering Manager on Payments, you will lead teams responsible for Airbnb’s payments platform while balancing near-term product execution with long-term platform reliability, scalability, regulatory requirements, and technical health.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with senior leaders to define and drive long-term technical strategy and architecture supporting Airbnb’s future direction.
• Establish technical vision and lead efforts to architect, build, and launch reliable, performant, and scalable solutions.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to design and deliver high-quality products.
• Lead technical initiatives and identify opportunities for engineering systems to create business impact.
• Refine and prioritize engineering requirements in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.
• Lead discussions that align technical work with business outcomes and product priorities.
• Build a culture of technical quality and engineering excellence spanning design, code review, and production.
• Empower individual contributors to increase their impact and lead technical initiatives across platforms and organizations.
• Retain, develop, and hire high-performing engineers.
• Build a strong and diverse engineering team capable of delivering ambitious product initiatives.

Payments Engineering Focus

Airbnb’s payments platform operates across global markets, currencies, payment methods, regulatory environments, and external partner integrations. The Payments team builds and operates an in-house platform designed to support global scale, reliability, compliance, and product flexibility.

The Engineering Manager will work with technical leads to make engineering decisions, reduce systemic technical debt, maintain operational excellence, and help define a roadmap that supports platform scale, reliability, regulatory requirements, and product innovation.

Required Qualifications

• 3–5+ years of hands-on experience managing an engineering team.
• 9+ years of relevant software development industry experience in a fast-paced technology environment.
• Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree, preferably in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
• Strong expertise building large-scale backend systems and experience with user-facing features.
• Strong product and design instincts with proven experience building well-designed user experiences.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience working with multiple engineering teams and cross-functional partners.
• Ability to adapt leadership style to different situations and ways of working.
• Experience leading and shipping large initiatives with significant business impact.
• Experience creating a culture of operational excellence focused on quality, reliability, and availability.
• Sound judgment when balancing short-term business requirements against long-term technical quality.
• Ability to communicate with and influence a wide range of stakeholders.
• Experience fostering an inclusive and engaging team environment.
• Ability to identify, retain, develop, and acquire critical engineering talent.
• Strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion within teams.

Leadership & Technical Scope

• Engineering team leadership and talent development.
• Large-scale backend systems.
• Global payments infrastructure.
• Technical strategy and architecture.
• Platform scalability and reliability.
• Operational excellence.
• Technical debt management.
• Cross-functional product development.
• Regulatory and compliance considerations within payments.
• User-facing product experiences.

Remote Work & Location Requirements

This position is remote eligible within the United States. Candidates must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. The supplied listing does not provide the complete list of eligible or excluded states.

The role may occasionally include work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed with the employee’s manager. Airbnb states that its excluded-state list continues to evolve, so candidates should confirm their current eligibility during the application process.

Compensation

The base pay range for this position is $212,000–$265,000 USD per year. Airbnb states that actual base pay depends on factors including training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs, and market demands.

The role may also be eligible for a bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits. The supplied listing does not specify the value or terms of these additional compensation and benefit components.

Application Accommodation

Airbnb provides a disability-inclusive application and interview process. Candidates whose disability prevents them from completing the online application may request reasonable accommodation through the accommodation contact provided by Airbnb.