Senior Application Security Engineer

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 Airbnb's Application Security team is focused on making the Airbnb platform safer for millions of users around the world. We are a team covering a broad range of responsibilities from tool development to architectural consulting. We collaborate closely with our product teams, integrate security into every stage of development, and empower them to build secure features without unnecessary friction. Airbnb is a community built on trust, and we are integral to that foundation. The Difference You Will Make The Application Security (Appsec) team at Airbnb works with our product teams to ensure we have secure systems and applications. The Appsec team builds close partnerships with key areas in our engineering organization to identify security leverage opportunities and drive high impact security initiatives. Our partner team, the Security Development Engineering team focuses on building paved roads, automation for security self-service, and vulnerability management to reduce security risk. As a Senior Application Security Engineer, you will own the security partnership with one or more product engineering areas, lead high-impact security initiatives from problem definition through to measurable risk reduction, and be the subject matter expert that product engineers and other security engineers turn to for the hardest application security problems. A Typical Day • Lead the identification and elimination of entire classes of application security vulnerabilities by designing and delivering scalable solutions (paved roads, guardrails, and tooling) that strengthen Airbnb's defense-in-depth strategy. • Own the security partnership with one or more product engineering areas: run threat models, design reviews, and code reviews for complex and high-risk systems, set security requirements early in design, and drive them through to launch. • Lead security initiatives that span multiple teams, from problem definition to measurable outcome, influencing engineering leaders and partner teams without direct authority. • Act as a subject matter expert and escalation point for the Appsec team; mentor and coach other security engineers and help onboard new team members. • Educate and empower software engineers to strengthen their security expertise and foster a culture of security awareness throughout Airbnb. • Investigate, prioritize, and drive the resolution of application security vulnerabilities, including the most complex and highest-risk findings, ensuring timely remediation across Airbnb products. Your Expertise • Deep understanding of web and mobile application security, including common vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and secure development practices, with the depth to be the go-to expert in at least one area (for example authentication and authorization, API security, or mobile security). • Hands-on software development experience, ideally with Java, JavaScript, Python, and Swift, and a track record of shipping security tooling or paved-road solutions that other engineers adopt. • Knowledge of modern frameworks like ReactJS, Dropwizard and GraphQL, with the ability to assess their security implications and define secure-by-default patterns for them. • Track record of leading security initiatives across multiple teams: defining the problem, aligning stakeholders, and delivering measurable risk reduction, working independently with guidance only in