Staff AI Innovation Engineer, Employee Experience
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 Tools & Technologies Experience (TNT) team sits at the center of Airbnb’s digital employee experience transformation. We bring together engineering, product thinking, business processes, and knowledge management to reimagine how employees interact with their work. Our mission is to make internal tools smarter, workflows more seamless, and employee decisions more data-driven and personalized.
As part of TNT, you’ll join a curious, collaborative, and ambitious team committed to building the future of employee experience through the strategic use of AI.
The Difference You Will Make:
In this role, you will architect the next generation of Airbnb’s internal operating system by designing and building intelligent, AI-powered solutions that address real Employee Experience (EX) pain points. You will translate ambiguous HR and workforce needs into scalable products, stitch together systems and data flows, and rapidly build prototypes that demonstrate what’s possible.
You’ll be expected to move fluidly between engineering, product strategy, systems architecture, and narrative storytelling. You’ll independently build working prototypes - agent flows, lightweight apps, LLM-driven assistants - that can progress from concept to stakeholder testing in days, not months, and that can evolve into production-ready solutions with minimal lift from partner teams.
This is a highly entrepreneurial role that requires zooming between high-level EX systems thinking and hands-on implementation. You’ll partner closely with EX, BizTech, Legal, Privacy, and InfoSec to ensure solutions are innovative, ethical, and securely designed.
A Typical Day:
- Translate employee and manager workflows into well-defined AI product opportunities
- Rapidly prototype and test working solutions (LLM agents, workflow automations, microapps, embedded tools, etc.)
- Architect systems integrations across our HR tech stack (Workday, Greenhouse, Qualtrics, Airtable, RightAnswers, Asana, and more)
- Lead discovery sessions with stakeholders to uncover automation and augmentation opportunities
- Evaluate third-party AI tools and determine build vs. buy options
- Design and execute fast-cycle pilots across knowledge management, decision support, communications, and resource planning
- Define success metrics, measure impact, and iterate based on user feedback
- Translate complex AI architectures into clear narratives that help stakeholders understand value and adoption paths
- Ensure alignment with Airbnb’s privacy, security, and ethical AI guardrails
Continuously evolve EX’s AI strategy as organizational needs and technologies shift
Your Expertise:
- 9+ years in product management, AI engineering, and/or platform architecture, with hands-on experience building and launching AI/ML-powered products
- Proven 0→1 builder with extensive experience developing GenAI prototypes, tools, and platforms from scratch
Ability to produce functional prototypes (using Claude Code or similar) within hours and stakeholder-ready demos within days - Strong systems-thinking skills with the ability to map complex workflows, diagnose root causes, and design buildable solutions
Expertise in prompt engineering, context orchestration, and adapting LLM behavior to different users, workflows, and decision contexts
Data-informed decision-maker who can define success criteria, measure ROI, and refine models and workflows - Skilled in communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences
Highly collaborative, systems-oriented, and adept at connecting dots across people, tools, and processes - Strong visual and narrative communication skills (Figma, Miro, slideware)
- Portfolio of prototypes or relevant 0→1 work preferred but not required
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.