Senior Staff Data Scientist, Guest & Host Marketplace AI

Details

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way.

The Community You Will Join

Guest Experience is responsible for Search and Discovery, Merchandising, and end-to-end online software experience worldwide from top-of-funnel discovery through post-booking engagement. We are looking for a talented Data Scientist to join the Guest Data Science team. This tech lead will be at the core of using AI and causal inference to understand user behavior in our app, detect underlying intent, and to build data products needed to provide a compelling and personalized experience of our app. We build products that help guests find the inventory most relevant to them in our marketplace.

Responsibilities

• Lead innovation efforts to build methodologies to identify and evaluate the preferences important to every guest at every step of their online discovery funnel.
• Shape data strategy to drive guest conversion and regular engagement across Homes, Experiences and Services verticals.
• Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering to identify in-product optimizations and shape UX design architecture for navigation across surfaces in the app.
• Develop deep understanding of how guests navigate and re-engage with the app via analysis, research, and leveraging granular user action and sequence datasets.
• Drive technical frameworks and provide science leadership to explore paradigms for detecting revealed preferences and quantifying online frictions.
• Write code for prototypes to detect and quantify taxonomy of guest preferences via iterative development of data frameworks, models and artifacts derived from AI toolkits.
• Assess assumptions and efficacy of derived guest preferences via measurement and validating hypotheses linked to online guest action and engagement; set up experiments and data feedback loops.
• Present findings and recommendations to leadership to inform strategy and cross-functional deliverables.

Requirements

• Causal inference expertise with marketplace experience.
• Preferred domain experience in search, UX discovery, and personalized evidence systems.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Econometrics or a related field.
• 9+ years of industry experience with a PhD (or 12+ years with a Masters).
• Strong communication skills with cross-functional partners in product, engineering, and design to enable data-driven product development focused on user experience.
• Expert in at least one programming language for data analysis (Python or R) with familiarity in SQL. Comfortable developing proof-of-concept prototypes.
• Passion for AI and a learner’s mindset towards LLMs and dynamic systems.
• Proven ability to succeed in both collaborative and independent work environments and a track record of engagement with the technical community.

Your Location

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed with your manager. While Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you which states you are eligible to work from.

Compensation & Offices

• Base pay range: $224,000—$280,000 USD.
• This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.
• Offices: United States