Role in brief
Airbnb is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead its Workflow Orchestration team. This role involves overseeing the design and operation of distributed infrastructure for data workflows, defining the technical vision, and driving the adoption of workflow tools. Candidates with strong leadership experience in distributed systems and expertise in orchestration frameworks should apply.
About the role
This role focuses on leading a team responsible for the distributed infrastructure that manages thousands of daily data workflows. The manager will guide the team in designing, implementing, and maintaining these systems. A key aspect is defining the technical direction for orchestration, ensuring it aligns with the broader data infrastructure and analytics strategy at Airbnb.
The position requires driving the adoption of effective workflow tools and paradigms across various data engineering, reliability, and machine learning teams. This involves ensuring consistency, high performance, and operational excellence in how data workflows are managed. Success in this area means streamlining processes and improving the efficiency of data operations.
Collaboration is central to this role, as the manager will work closely with other teams such as Data Platform, Compute, Storage, Analytics, and ML Infrastructure. The goal is to integrate orchestration capabilities seamlessly into the wider data ecosystem. Additionally, the manager will mentor engineers, fostering strong technical judgment and ownership within the team.
The base salary for this role ranges from $212,000 to $265,000 USD, with potential eligibility for bonuses, equity, benefits, and employee travel credits.
Skills that matter here
- distributed systems: This role requires leading a team that designs and operates distributed orchestration infrastructure, making a strong background in distributed systems essential for managing and scaling these complex environments.
- workflow orchestration: The core responsibility is to lead the workflow orchestration team, defining its technical vision and driving the adoption of best practices and tooling for managing data workflows.
- data infrastructure: The position involves overseeing infrastructure that supports data workflows and aligning the orchestration strategy with the broader data infrastructure platform.
- Apache Airflow: Experience with large-scale orchestration frameworks like Apache Airflow is necessary for understanding the challenges of scaling and managing complex data workflows.
- Dagster: Familiarity with platforms such as Dagster is required to address issues related to scalability, observability, and multi-tenancy in workflow orchestration.
- Kubeflow: Prior working experience with orchestration engines like Kubeflow is important for leading a team that manages and optimizes data workflow systems.
Who this role suits
- A leader with at least five years of experience managing and scaling teams focused on distributed systems.
- Someone with a strong technical foundation in distributed systems, scheduling, or data infrastructure tooling.
- An individual who can effectively partner with various engineering and product teams to deliver reliable infrastructure.
- A communicator who can clearly explain complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
From the employer
As an Engineering Manager on the Workflow Orchestration team, you will:
- Lead and grow a high-performing team responsible for designing, implementing, and operating distributed orchestration infrastructure that runs tens of thousands of data workflows daily.
- Define the long-term technical vision and roadmap for orchestration, aligning to Airbnb's broader Data Infrastructure and Analytics platform strategy.
- Drive adoption of best-in-class workflow paradigms and tooling across data engineering, reliability, and ML teams, ensuring consistency, performance, and operational excellence.
- Partner closely with cross-functional teams in Data Platform, Compute, Storage, Analytics, and ML Infrastructure to integrate orchestration capabilities into wider data ecosystems.
- Coach and mentor engineers, enabling strong technical judgment, clarity of thinking, and ownership across the team.
What You'll Need:
- 5+ years of engineering leadership experience managing and scaling distributed systems teams.
- Strong technical background in distributed systems, workflow orchestration engines, scheduling systems, or data infrastructure tooling.
- Previous working experience in large scale orchestration frameworks such as Apache Airflow, Dagster, Flyte, Prefect, Kubeflow, Maestro or similar platforms, and understanding of challenges around scaling, observability, and multi-tenancy.
- Strong familiarity with software engineering principles, including object-oriented and functional programming paradigms, design patterns, and code quality practices.
- A track record of partnering across engineering, product, and cross-functional teams to deliver reliable, high-quality infrastructure at scale.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in synthesizing complex technical concepts for broad audiences.
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.
- Pay Range $212,000 — $265,000 USD.
Questions about this role
What is the remote work policy for this role?
This role is remote eligible, allowing candidates to work from a non-specified location.
What level of seniority is expected for this position?
This position is for a lead-level professional, specifically an Engineering Manager.
What are some key technologies used in this role?
Key technologies include distributed systems, workflow orchestration frameworks like Apache Airflow, Dagster, Flyte, Prefect, Kubeflow, and Maestro, and general data infrastructure tooling.