Good business, toxic culture, lame technology - Software Engineer Airbnb Employee Review

2.0
Sep 3, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good business. Beautiful office. Good work-life balance. Competitive compensation. Some 401k match. Overall nice people.

Cons

Rather political environment - it seems to me that making "friends" and pleasing your manager is more important than doing solid work. Fake and hypocritical. I feel they don't practice what they preach. Another complaint I have is on the engineering side. There are many talented engineers hired from top schools and FB/GOOG/AMZN/LNKD/MSFT, but miraculously the quality of Airbnb's engineering is not that good, as you can tell from how slow the website and the app are even today. Again, this probably is related to the culture of the company.

Explore other reviews about Airbnb

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Laid back, strong mentorship/training, and good team chemistry.

Cons

Online only, they had summer branch offices, but nobody went in.

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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