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Salary: USD 168,000 - 206,000 / annual
Airbnb's Technology Finance team partners with Infrastructure, Engineering, and Product teams to plan, forecast, and manage the cost of running Airbnb's cloud and AI platforms. This Principal role sits at the intersection of finance and technical infrastructure, translating usage trends—cloud compute, storage, and AI spend—into forecasts and cost narratives that inform company-wide investment decisions.
You will own the understanding, forecasting, and influencing of Airbnb's total cloud and AI spend, spanning traditional AWS infrastructure and emerging AI workloads. Success means delivering a cost narrative that leadership can act on and identifying efficiency opportunities that measurably bend the cost curve without degrading product or employee experience.
Key responsibilities include:
- Build and maintain monthly/weekly cloud and AI cost forecasts, reconciling actuals against plan and explaining variance drivers to leadership
- Track AI spend by category and by model/provider mix, flagging shifts in usage or pricing that affect forecasts
- Partner with Infrastructure and AI Platform engineering teams to size, validate, and prioritize efficiency initiatives (model routing, token optimization, provider migration)
- Own migration-tracking reporting and ensure underlying data is traceable back to source systems
- Prepare and present cost updates to senior audiences, translating technical usage data into clear financial narratives
- Identify and quantify new cost efficiency opportunities in partnership with technical stakeholders, tracking them through to landed savings
- Run monthly and ad hoc reviews with Finance and Tech leadership
- Lead planning cycles (FY26 close-out, FY27 guidance) and drive month-over-month rigor in cost variance analysis
Key cross-functional partners include Engineering, Procurement, and FP&A.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 10 years of finance, FP&A, or cost management experience, ideally including direct exposure to cloud infrastructure costs
- Prior experience with AI/ML infrastructure costs strongly preferred
- Demonstrated ability to build and maintain complex financial models and forecasts in ambiguous, fast-changing environments
- Strong track record partnering with engineering/technical teams to translate usage data into financial insights
