Senior Manager, Technical Program Management (Search & AI Foundations)

The Community You Will Join:

Airbnb's mission is to create a world where people can Belong Anywhere. As we grow to achieve that mission, we're looking to add a technical, hands-on, and mission-driven Senior Manager of Technical Program Management (TPM) for the Infrastructure team to lead AI Platforms initiatives spanning Search Relevance, Machine Learning Infrastructure (MLI), and Search Knowledge Infrastructure (SKI). This person will partner with our engineering & product teams to build/enhance data-driven decision making across multiple areas in Airbnb. They will partner closely with senior ICs and engineering directors across Airbnb on processes, strategy and execution.

In this role, you will collaborate closely with the Machine Learning (ML) engineers, infrastructure engineers and product managers from across Airbnb to develop holistic solutions that ensure a vibrant and equitable marketplace.

The Search Relevance, Machine Learning Infrastructure (MLI), and Search Knowledge Infrastructure (SKI) teams power the ranking, recommendations, model infrastructure, and search intelligence capabilities that make up a core part of Airbnb's AI Platforms, including: Search Ranking for Stays, Experiences, and Services, Home Page Recommendations, Search Bar AutoSuggest and Autocomplete, Marketing Technology, and the ML infrastructure and platform capabilities that support them. The team also creates the fabric for personalization and the underlying model infrastructure, used both on and off platform for Airbnb. We collaborate with many teams including Search Infrastructure, Guest and Host Experiences, MDX, Marketing, CS, and Trust, and many more.

We are looking for a candidate with a robust technical background who deeply understands the problem space, drives requirements, and leverages their AI/ML expertise to resolve strategic challenges that align with Airbnb’s larger goals.

The Difference You Will Make:

Our team of TPMs demonstrate ownership, apply skills in whatever combination necessary, and make order out of chaos to achieve the desired outcome. We work hard to ensure teams understand what they have to deliver and by when. We are responsible for aligning teams, identifying or highlighting dependencies, recognizing and resolving ambiguity, setting expectations, anticipating risk, identifying and removing roadblocks, and ensuring the desired business goals are achieved. We are looking for people who share our passion for tackling complexity head-on while building a world class team of Technical Program Managers.

A Typical Day:

• Shape and influence the technical direction of projects, ensuring we meet stakeholder needs while maintaining high-quality standards. Rapidly prototype and validate project ideas through iterative development cycles, adapting as necessary based on insights and data.
• Balance broad, outcome-driven thinking with attention to critical details, exercising sound judgment to prioritize where deep focus is necessary to ensure successful execution.
• Define and secure stakeholder alignment on clear, measurable success criteria to accelerate AI initiatives. Regularly assess risks and opportunities, and devise proactive mitigation strategies to maintain momentum and project success.
• Maintain transparent and effective communication channels to keep stakeholders informed of progress, developments, and challenges.
• Expertly present outcomes and updates to senior leadership, clearly and comprehensively articulating trade-offs, risks, and emerging opportunities.

Your Expertise:

• 13+ years in technical program management function, with at least 8 years of experience managing a team of TPMs, creating a culture of inclusiveness and sustainability
• Demonstrated experience in search relevance, natural language search, and recommendation systems. Experience with applying GenAI/LLM technologies on search is a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to work through ambiguity to detailed solutions. You can take a vague problem, crisply frame the challenge, identify a path forward, and drive an initiative over the finish-line.
• Self-motivated, proactive and proven ability to adapt well and work with teams having different operating cadences.
• Sound business judgment, a proven ability to influence others, strong analytical skills, and a track record of taking ownership, leading data driven analyses, and influencing results
• Experience with ML models, LLMs, LRMs, feature development, model testing and resource management to support the development of AI-powered product experiences.
• Familiar with A/B testing, incremental delivery and deployment.
• Ability to ramp up quickly and learn new technologies with minimal lag time.
• Excellent written and oral business communication and people skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders.
  

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.