Senior Manager, Quality, Specialty

airbnb, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 190,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Airbnb is seeking a Senior Quality Lead, Specialty to drive the quality program across Safety, Premium Support, and CS Labs. You will lead a globally distributed team, establish governance and calibration standards, and partner with executives to surface risks and drive measurable impact.

The role requires deep expertise in COPC/Six Sigma/Lean, AutoQA and AI-enabled QA tools, and strong executive presence to influence senior stakeholders. A high-growth tech environment experience is preferred.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of leadership in quality, operations, or trust & safety in sensitive, high-stakes environments.
• Bachelor's degree required; MBA or Master’s preferred.
• Proven ability to transform quality programs for complex, non-routine support functions.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic quality initiatives across Safety, Premium Support, and CS Labs.
• Define operating models, governance, and calibration standards for global QA teams.
• Oversee QA evaluation across partner sites and translate findings into policy and product improvements.
• Develop automated KPI reporting and predictive NPS analyses to drive real-time insights.

Skills

12+ years experience

Executive presence

Quality program leadership

Stakeholder influence

AI/ML QA tools

COPC/Six Sigma/Lean

QA tooling (AutoQA, Observe.AI)

Global team leadership

Vendor governance

Education

Bachelor's Degree

MBA or Masters

Tools

AutoQA

Observe.AI

QA tooling platforms

Job description

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:

The Senior Quality Lead, Specialty is a newly created senior leadership role accountable for the quality program across several high stakes, high complexity Community Support functions: Safety, Premium Support, and CS Labs. These are not high-volume, routine support queues, they are the functions that handle sensitive guest and host interactions, carry high regulatory and reputational exposure, and demand a quality leader who understands the difference between behavioral compliance and genuine harm prevention.

The Difference You Will Make:

The successful candidate will arrive with a clear point of view on what world-class quality looks like in high-complexity, high-stakes support environments.

A Typical Day:

Strategic Leadership & Program Ownership

• Own and execute the Specialty quality strategy aligned to several critical priorities: breaking silos, aligning with stakeholders, defining a clear operating model, and driving measurable impact.
• Establish quality operating models with shared governance, consistent calibration standards, and clear accountability frameworks, while preserving the differentiation that each function requires.
• Represent Specialty quality in WBRs, MBRs, QBRs, and executive reviews; deliver a proactive narrative that surfaces emerging risks.

Measurement & Quality Execution

• Oversee QA evaluation execution across all Specialty functions and partner sites globally, ensuring consistent application of QA processes and frameworks.
• Lead root cause analysis on systemic failures, translating QA findings into product, process, and policy recommendations that go beyond agent-level coaching.
• Formalize audit the auditor as an ongoing control: define sample selection, alignment thresholds, root cause review, and evaluator-level remediation processes.
• Ensure every evaluation closes with a documented coaching action; build the tracking mechanisms to measure whether coaching is translating into performance improvement over time.

Insights, Reporting & Stakeholder Partnership

• Establish automated KPI reporting across all Specialty functions, eliminating manual processes.
• Implement an NPS/predictive NPS detractor analysis framework, ensuring global patterns surface in real time.
• Build a Partner QA Performance Scorecard, establishing clear accountability for Calibration Accuracy, Evaluation Completeness, Critical Error Detection, Coaching Effectiveness.
• Drive AutoQA adoption across Specialty tiers, with particular focus on the attributes unique to Safety.
• Govern the Responsible AI quality framework within Specialty: establish how Quality identifies, classifies, and escalates AI-model errors via CS Labs, and ensure this process is consistently applied and regularly reviewed as AI capabilities evolve.
• Champion AI and analytics tools for Specialty insight generation and reporting.
• Lead a globally distributed team of Partner Quality Leads and Quality Insights Analysts.
• Foster a One-Quality-Team culture that eliminates the cross-team divides: shared best practices, cross-regional learning, and proactive knowledge sharing.
• Set high expectations and hold the team accountable for output quality, insight delivery, and stakeholder engagement.
• Partner closely with peers to ensure one consistent quality voice across the portfolio.

Your Expertise:

• 12+ years in Customer/Community Support, Quality, Operations, or Trust & Safety, with direct experience leading quality programs in sensitive, high-stakes, or regulated support environments.
• Bachelor's Degree, preferably in related field required; MBA or Masters preferred.
• Demonstrated experience building or transforming quality programs for complex, non-routine support functions.
• Deep expertise in quality methodologies (COPC, AQS, Six Sigma, Lean), with a proven ability to apply them to high-volume, complex support environments.
• Experience with QA tooling platforms, including hands-on ownership of form design, calibration management, and AutoQA deployment.
• Experience managing globally distributed quality teams across multiple functions, languages, and partner organizations in a 24/7 environment.
• Experience deploying or scaling AI/ML assisted QA tools (AutoQA, predictive NPS/CSAT).
• Strong executive presence: able to influence senior stakeholders, present a unified quality narrative in leadership forums, and drive alignment across stakeholders.
• Experience managing vendor partner governance: calibration oversight, performance improvement plans, and escalation frameworks.

Preferred

• COPC certification; Six Sigma Green or Black Belt.
• Experience with Observe.AI.
• Background in program management, change management, or organizational design within a high-growth tech environment.
• Experience working in or closely with BPO/vendor governance models at scale (1,000+ partner FTEs across multiple sites and geographies).

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: [e-mail] . 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.

How We'll Take Care of You:

Our job titles may span more than one career level. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, such as: training, transferable skills, work experience, business needs and market demands. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role may also be eligible for bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.