Staff Data Scientist - Algorithms, Merchandising & Search AI

The Community You Will Join:

Search is pivotal to the Airbnb marketplace, and we are constantly innovating on new data products to help user decision-making, provide thoughtful personalization of our search experience, and to use ML to drive growth. Within the Guest-and-Host organization, our Data Science team is responsible for driving Merchandising and Search AI opportunities to deliver useful product improvements in our online guest journey which lead to more offline trip experiences that are higher quality for our users. To achieve such a goal, Data Scientists mine various collections of behavioral data to design and build machine learning models to understand our user experience and to optimize the useful presentation of our product. The data products and prototypes we build inform product improvements that make the steps from search to booking easy, fast and a high-quality match for our guests.

The Difference You Will Make:

As one of the most senior Machine Learning Scientists in the team, you will be hands-on in building blue-sky prototypes of data products to pursue opportunities for growth, search, and product merchandising. This projects will leverage AI, LLM, NLP, deep learning, and search recommendation algorithms:

• Extract signals from large-scale structured, unstructured, and user journey data to generate ML-driven candidates for personalized Merchandising recommendations

• Design, run, and diagnose experiments to validate hypotheses and performance of data prototypes 

• Work closely with Search team as Science partner on technical projects to understand user preferences

• Build data products, model, and identify user intent at various stages of the user product journey

• Research, present, and publish internally and externally, to engage and advance Airbnb’s standing in the scientific community.

Our team works on interesting problems 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

• Autonomy – To apply and investigate 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

• Hands-on ‘builder’ experience with recommendations and search problems. Also a plus, proficiency with LLMs and/or related AI, NLP, UGC/content understanding topics including deep learning, information retrieval, or knowledge extraction. For example, BERT, LaMDA, GPT-2/3/4, LLaMA

• 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, that demonstrates an eagerness to learn and share.

• Knowledge of experimentation and statistical biases. Familiarity with multi-sided marketplaces.

• 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.