Airbnb

Global Travel Technology Company — Pioneering the Sharing Economy

The consensus on Airbnb: Choose Airbnb if you want genuine remote flexibility and travel perks — but promotions are slow and bureaucracy is growing.

2008
Founded
San Francisco
Headquarters
~7,300
Employees
247
Open Roles
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Culture Overview

Live and work anywhere

Airbnb redefined travel by creating the world's largest community-driven accommodation platform, and they've applied that same innovative spirit to how they build their workplace. Since 2022, their groundbreaking "Live and Work Anywhere" policy allows employees to live anywhere in their country of employment with no change to compensation — one of the most progressive remote work policies in tech. The engineering culture is deeply rooted in open source, with contributions like Lottie, Apache Airflow, and 200+ public repositories.

Remote-Friendly Work-Life Balance Diverse & Inclusive Open Source Strong Comp & Equity
Glassdoor Ratings

Airbnb Glassdoor Ratings & Employee Reviews

4.1
Overall Glassdoor Score
Based on 5,000 reviews
Culture & Values 4.2
Work-Life Balance 4.0
Compensation & Benefits 4.2
Career Opportunities 3.5
Senior Management 3.5
Overall Rating 4.1
80% Recommend to a Friend
87% CEO Approval (Brian Chesky)
Employee Review Themes

Working at Airbnb: Pros & Cons

✓ What employees love

  • ✓ Live and Work Anywhere policy — genuine remote flexibility with no pay cuts, plus quarterly in-person gatherings
  • ✓ Strong compensation and benefits — competitive pay, quarterly travel credits, annual educational stipends, and excellent healthcare
  • ✓ Amazing people and collaborative culture — employees consistently praise the caliber of their colleagues
  • ✓ Strong company mission and brand — working on a product people genuinely love with a "belonging anywhere" mission
  • ✓ Good work-life balance — flexible schedules, limited mandatory in-office time, respect for personal time

✗ What could be better

  • ✗ Limited career growth — promotions are slow and senior positions frequently filled externally rather than promoted from within
  • ✗ Internal politics at mid-to-senior levels — decision-making influenced by alignments rather than performance
  • ✗ Senior management rated 3.5/5 — some disorganized procedures and micromanagement from top leadership
  • ✗ Post-IPO cultural decline — increasing corporate bureaucracy, declining benefits compared to pre-IPO era
  • ✗ Accountability gaps — some employees describe an "every man for himself" environment in certain teams
Engineering Culture

How the engineering team works

Tech Stack

Java Ruby JavaScript TypeScript Kotlin Swift

Open Source & Research

200+ public repositories including Lottie, Apache Airflow, Visx, and Epoxy. One of the most active open-source contributors in the industry.

Design & Product

Design-led culture with a proprietary Design Language System (DLS). CEO Brian Chesky models his leadership on Steve Jobs' obsession with product details.

Team Structure

Cross-functional teams with strong engineering-design collaboration. Live and Work Anywhere policy for all employees.

Open Positions

Join the Airbnb team

... open positions.

Community Sentiment

What the community says about Airbnb

Mixed Sentiment 8 mentions from Hacker News & Reddit · Updated 2026-04-21
“I will start off by saying, yes, the OP is really light on location and painpoints to have a real concrete conversation. I wish there was more detail about the environment and the hypothesis being tested.Then I will say your first sentence is absolutely correct as well!”
Hacker News subhobroto · 2026-04-20 View thread →
“This is where I get into much more speculative land, but I think people are underestimating the degree to which AI assistant apps are going to eat much of the traditional software industry.”
Hacker News csallen · 2026-04-06 View thread →
“eventfirst | Senior Full-Stack Engineer | Berlin, Germany | REMOTE (CET) | Full-timeWe are applying AI to organize corporate events.We are looking for a senior engineer with at least ten years of full stack experience, a strong focus on product and UX, and optionally some...”
Hacker News felix-h · 2026-04-01 View thread →
“If you want second homes to be used productively, just allow folks to list them on AirBnb for planned short-term rental. Long-term rentals are a total non-starter politically for second homes, since you obviously can't ethically throw out someone who regards that rental...”
Hacker News zozbot234 · 2026-03-19 View thread →
“Your 3 examples are bad (any example would probably be since survivorship bias): Airbnb didn’t “sell cereal” as their core business, they did a publicity stunt which is fine. Slack did pivot so it doesn’t go against advice to look into pivoting.”
Reddit r/SaaS · 212 upvotes · 2025-11-12 View thread →
“I’m surprised they are paying as much as £70k in India, that’s an exceptional salary. Even UK SWE, on average, don’t make that much. If you move to UK you will earn £70k-£90k with far far far higher cost of living. Honestly.”
Reddit r/cscareerquestionsuk · 0 upvotes · 2026-01-03 View thread →
“The mini fridge at my airbnb started emitting a burnt plastic smell I immediately researched it learned I should unplug the unit and ventilate the room. I’ve contacted my host about this issue and am waiting on a response.”
Reddit r/AirBnB · 0 upvotes · 2025-11-18 View thread →

Sentiment data refreshed daily from public Hacker News and Reddit discussions. See all company profiles →

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