ML Manager

Role overview

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.

Your Location

This position is CHINA BASED. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. Your recruiter will inform you what cities you are able to work from depending on your personal legal working identity and Airbnb internal policies.

The Community You Will Join:

Community Support (CS) has increasingly become a key driver of enabling Airbnb's core business. The Community Support Engineering team is responsible for the world-class technology, architecture, and solutions that power CS at Airbnb. The products and capabilities we build empower our guests and hosts, CS agents, and operations teams around the world.

As part of the CS Product vision, we are leveraging AI to transform how we deliver customer service - combining advanced ML/LLM capabilities with the expertise of our Support Ambassadors to create a seamless, high-quality support experience.

The Difference You Will Make:

As an ML Manager within Community Support Product Engineering in China, you will lead a team of machine learning engineers to research, design, and optimize AI models and services that scale AI-powered products and measurably improve the end-to-end Community Support experience for guests, hosts, and support ambassadors.

What You’ll Do:

• Hire, mentor and guide a dynamic team of highly skilled machine learning engineers, fostering their technical growth and professional development.
• Proactively take initiatives to drive for outcomes over the scope of the team.
• Build relationships and drive alignment with stakeholders within Community Support and across external teams.
• Communicate difficult or complex concepts and decisions clearly and effectively with multiple stakeholders across various functions.
• Provides critical guidance and input in prioritization over multiple major projects.
• Foster rapid development cycles without sacrificing quality, collaborating closely with platform, backend, and frontend engineers to engineer robust ML models and systems that enhance community support initiatives.
• Uphold Technical Standards: Conduct thorough design and architecture reviews to continually elevate our standards of technical excellence.

Your Expertise:

• Expertise in ML & AI: Deep knowledge of various machine learning and AI methodologies, including LLMs and non-LLMs, tailored for user-facing products.
• Leadership in ML Development: Proven experience in leading teams that develop large-scale ML models and systems to improve online user experiences.
• Management and Mentorship: Strong leadership skills with a track record of nurturing an innovative and collaborative team environment.
• Communication Excellence: Exceptional verbal and written communication abilities, with a keen eye for detail.
• Collaborative Spirit: Demonstrated capability to work effectively with stakeholders at all organizational levels, both internally and externally.
• Problem Solving: Skilled in navigating and resolving ambiguous challenges through proactive and strategic approaches.
• Educational Background: PhD, or Master's degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or related technical field.
• Industry Experience: 9+ years of experience in building and shipping AI models and products, including 2+ years of experience with LLMs.
• Leadership Experience: 2+ years managing machine learning teams that deliver large impact.
• Technical Proficiency: Expert knowledge of machine learning algorithms and techniques.
• Continuous Learner: Ability to absorb new concepts quickly and integrate them effectively into business processes.