Staff Data Scientist - Algorithms, Guest Science

The Community You Will Join:

Understanding Who are our Guests and What they want is at the heart of providing a high quality user experience and informing thoughtful personalization of our online product. The core of the Airbnb platform is hospitality and we aim to become the ultimate host for our users, at every detail. To achieve such a goal, the Data Science team mines various collections of behavioral data to design and build machine learning models to understand our user experience and app performance. This derived understanding is used to inform product improvements that make the steps from search to booking easy and fast for guests.

The Difference You Will Make:

As  ML data scientist you will be the hands-on Science Lead for technical projects that seek to develop and communicate an understanding of user behavior and app performance patterns. The Guest Data Science team works to identify, model and measure user intent at various stages of the user product journey and collaborate with a strong team of engineers to improve barriers and frictions in our online user experience. Our team works across a diverse collection of Airbnb’s largest datasets and we are committed to applying innovation and creativity towards extracting a foundational understanding of our user, amidst the richness and heterogeneity of their complex behaviors and preferences.

A Typical Day: 

• Focus time – To build machine learning prototypes, develop data mastery to uncover learnings, and formulate structured frameworks to classify our users’ online product experience and interpret their behaviors
• Apply and experiment with state-of-the-art innovations to uplevel Airbnb status-quo approaches to technical problems
• Regularly present work internally at monthly meetings to technical, engineering and product stakeholders to iterate and generate excitement on roadmap progress
• Publish externally and engage with the scientific community to advance Airbnb’s standing

Your Expertise:

• 9+ years of relevant industry experience (e.g. ML scientist, tech lead, junior faculty) and a Master’s degree or PhD in a quantitative field
• Strong fluency in Python or R for hands-on IC work and advanced data analysis in SQL at scale
• Comfort to collaborate with software engineers to understand complex systems and abstracted logs
• Proven ability to communicate clearly and effectively to audiences of varying technical levels
• Proven mix of strong intellectual curiosity with high level of pragmatism and engagement with the technical community. Publications or presentations in recognized journals/conferences is a plus
• Ability to take a product-oriented mindset in using conceptual and innovative thinking to develop and apply solutions taking into consideration the user experience

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: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. 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.