It Is Not What It Appears From The Outside - Data Engineer Airbnb Employee Review

1.0
May 7, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Airbnb is no doubt a rocket ship. The culture is great, breeds friendliness. Some of the smartest people around in Silicon Valley.

Cons

- Data Engineers Are Treated As Second Class Citizens. - Blogs might give you the impression that there is fancy engineering or data science going on at Airbnb, but that is not true, with the exception of a few open source projects. We have a hard time attracting top data science talent relative to our peers. - Many managers are not technical enough to understand what we are doing, leads to a bungled performance review process. - Arrogant attitude that this is the best place to work and why would you want to work anywhere else. Not sure where we lost our humility along the journey... - Lots of red-tape, the speed and innovation at which things happen extremely slow. Generally people are risk averse

Explore other reviews about Airbnb

5.0
Mar 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Travel to cool places, meet nice people

Cons

They treat contract workers like garbage. You don't bow to the king, they will find a way to rid of you and push you out or just terminate your contract without warning.

5.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Airbnb's mission of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere strongly resonates with me. I'm excited by the opportunity to build products that operate at global scale and directly impact millions of users. My background in full-stack engineering, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and AI-powered applications aligns well with Airbnb's focus on innovation, reliability, and exceptional user experiences. I am particularly attracted to Airbnb's engineering culture, emphasis on ownership, and commitment to solving complex technical challenges while delivering meaningful value to hosts, guests, and communities worldwide.

Cons

One challenge of working at Airbnb is the complexity that comes with operating a global platform at scale. Engineering teams must balance reliability, performance, compliance, and user experience across many markets and stakeholders. While this can make development and decision-making more complex, it is also one of the aspects that makes the work technically interesting and professionally rewarding.

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