Senior Engineering Manager, Brazil Site Lead

The Community You Will Join

At Airbnb, we are expanding our global engineering presence by building a new technology hub in Brazil. This location will serve as a foundation for innovation, collaboration, and talent development across multiple engineering disciplines. As part of the broader Infrastructure organization, this site will play a critical role in advancing Airbnb’s technical platforms and supporting teams that power our global community of Hosts and Guests.

The Difference You Will Make

As an Engineering Manager and Site Lead for Brazil, you will help establish, grow, and lead our new engineering hub from the ground up. You will shape the site’s culture, attract and develop top local talent, and ensure alignment with Airbnb’s technical and organizational vision. This is a highly strategic and hands-on role focused on scaling an exceptional engineering environment that mirrors Airbnb’s standards of excellence while fostering local innovation.

You will be responsible for building foundational infrastructure for the hub’s long-term success—developing engineering capabilities, establishing operating rhythms, and serving as a connector between Brazil-based teams and global stakeholders.

You will also be an important part of the Reliability Engineering leadership team helping to shape and execute roadmaps for Airbnb efforts around Reliability, Observability and Quality Engineering.  You will have a particular focus on driving automated testing through tooling and AI.

A Typical Day

• Partner with global Infra and Product Engineering leaders to define the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Brazil hub as a seamless component of the overall infra workforce.
• Recruit and develop high-performing engineers and leaders, setting up strong hiring and onboarding practices tailored for the new site.
• Drive collaboration and alignment between Brazil-based engineers and global teams to ensure consistent technical direction and execution quality.
• Establish local engineering operations including communication cadences, cultural rituals, and partnership models that reflect Airbnb’s core values.
• Represent Airbnb locally—acting as a bridge between the company’s mission and the broader technology community in Brazil.
• Build partnerships with universities, technical institutions, and industry networks to expand Airbnb’s brand and attract top-tier engineering talent.
• Foster an inclusive, mission-driven, and high-performance culture that supports both personal growth and business impact.

Your Expertise

• 5+ years of engineering management experience and 10+ years of overall engineering experience, with a track record of leading technical teams in high-growth or startup environments.
• Proven experience building or scaling new engineering offices or distributed teams.
• Strong technical foundation in infrastructure, distributed systems, or large-scale backend engineering.
• Building highly reliable systems and ideally tooling that improves reliability and quality.
• Exceptional leadership skills with the ability to inspire, develop, and grow engineering talent.
• Strong operational and organizational acumen, capable of establishing site-level processes and rhythms from the ground up.
• Experience in the nuances of working in matrixed teams across multiple geographies, balancing cultural context with global alignment.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills, with fluency in English and Portuguese preferred.

Your Location

This position will be based in São Paulo, Brazil, with flexibility for hybrid work. Occasional travel to Airbnb’s global offices may be required.

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.

Offices: Brazil