Senior Manager, Product Specialist Program

The Community You Will Join: 

Airbnb is a global hospitality platform that connects travelers with unique accommodations and experiences around the world. Our mission is to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere. Community Blueprint is a team under Global Operations that aims to improve the quality of the end-to-end customer journey and bridge team silos across product, operations, and policy. To do this, we need to be experts in the guest and Host experience and in how the product, operations, policies function together to deliver the Airbnb experience. As part of the Community Blueprint team, your role will be instrumental in driving data-driven decision-making, connecting data across product & operations, and enhancing the Guest and host experience.

The Difference You Will Make:

We are seeking a highly experienced and skilled manager to lead our Product Specialist Program with deep expertise in product quality, strategic planning, and team development. As the Senior Manager of the Product Specialist Program, you are a leader that will be responsible for driving forward product excellence, developing insights that identify user experience gaps, and growing the team’s impact on the business. The ability to connect the dots across different teams and expand the visibility and impact this team has will be critical to success. This role will also be presenting to and influencing leaders at the highest level, meaning strong communication skills will be essential.

The Product Specialist Program (PSP) is part of the Marketplace Strategy team within Community Blueprint. This is a highly cross functional team, this means you will collaborate with many different functions across all of Airbnb to drive strategic initiatives and inform decisions that will ultimately improve the guest and host experience. We are looking for a scrappy self-starter with an entrepreneurial mindset who thrives in ambiguity and can deeply understand the nuances of our rapidly evolving business and use data to make key decisions. The ideal candidate is experienced and comfortable working closely with data and engineering teams, and knows how to leverage AI to transform product quality processes.

A Typical Day: 

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of Program Managers who lead the Product Specialists, providing regular feedback, coaching, and performance evaluations.
• Foster a collaborative and supportive team environment that encourages growth, knowledge sharing, and innovation.
• Oversee workload management, resource allocation, and project prioritization for the team.
• Manage and scale the product specialist program in-line with business requirements and budget.
• Drive program performance, ensuring optimal coverage and product issue prioritization to successfully achieve all targets and SLAs.
• Run business reviews to track and measure program related performance data and provide regular updates to key stakeholders covering, SLAs, performance to targets, plus highlights and challenges.
• Influence and collaborate with cross-functional leaders to align Product Specialist efforts with broader company goals and objectives.
• Leverage LLM/AI tools to enhance the effectiveness of the team.
• Develop strong working relationships and collaborative partnerships with the various internal teams such as Product, Engineering, Training, Knowledge Management, Incident Management, Business Process Improvement, Partner Management, Finance, Research, and others.
• This is a global program, which means this role will be working with people from many different time zones and requires flexibility in the hours they’re available to take meetings.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends and advancements in product defect identification and resolution.

Your Expertise:

• An undergraduate degree with a strong preference for candidates holding an MBA or equivalent advanced degree, with 13+ years of industry experience in Technical Program Management, Product Insights, Product Operations or equivalent role.
• Proficiency in SQL, data analysis, and data visualization.
• Proficiency in Jira and Airtable.
• Understanding of LLMs, agentic AI and desire to continue to learn in the AI space.
• Self-starter, thrives in ambiguity, and has an investigator mindset of wanting to get to the bottom of problems. 
• Strong problem-solving and critical thinking abilities, with a keen attention to detail.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to effectively communicate complex concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to collaborate and influence across functions.
• An agile, growth-minded approach, demonstrated through a history of driving projects from ideation to impact.
• Robust business acumen, strategic thinking skills, and the ability to make informed judgments.
• Experience managing a team including performance management and goal setting.
• Flexible and can deal effectively with changes in priorities or ambiguity.
• Prior experience in the technology industry or a fast-paced, data-driven environment is preferred.

Joining the Airbnb team as a Senior Manager of the Product Specialist Team will provide you with an exciting opportunity to contribute to the growth and success of a global technology company. If you are a highly analytical, detail-oriented, and strategic thinker with a passion for data-driven decision-making, we would love to hear from you.

Your Location:

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list  If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from.

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.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: [email protected]. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process. 

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.