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Salary: USD 204,000 - 249,000 / annual
Airbnb's Experiences team is scaling a curated, high-quality supply of unique activities hosted by local creators and operators worldwide. This role addresses a critical gap: no one currently owns the demand-side merchandising strategy that sits on top of ranking algorithms. Recent signals show manual ranking outperforming algorithmic ranking in some markets, indicating untapped potential in how Experiences are surfaced to guests.
As Senior Programs & Business Operations Lead, you will own the end-to-end merchandising strategy for Experiences, determining what gets surfaced, to whom, and when. You'll serve as the senior demand-side counterpart to Product and Engineering teams, driving strategy around ranking, personalization, and discoverability. This is a hybrid business operations and product operations role with significant influence over technical roadmaps.
Key responsibilities include:
**Merchandising & Discoverability Strategy**: Define demand-side merchandising strategy covering placement, sequencing, and logic for what surfaces to which guests. Push for dynamic, context-aware ranking that accounts for day of week, availability, trends, market conditions, and traveler type. Prioritize experiments that improve discoverability and translate results into actionable decisions.
**Cross-functional Partnerships**: Partner deeply with Product, Engineering, and Supply teams on matching, personalization, and ranking. Clarify ownership boundaries between merchandising, supply, and product mandates. Maintain active product-to-ops dialogue, including during periods of reduced Product coverage.
**Analytics & Reporting**: Build dashboards and measurement frameworks for discoverability, spotlights, and placement performance. Close analytics and tooling gaps that limit team velocity. Bring data-driven insights on where merchandising investment delivers ROI.
You will report to the Director of Business Growth for Experiences and collaborate with SEM/SEO/Display leads to ensure channel strategies are coherent and non-duplicative.
**Requirements:**
- 12+ years in business operations, product operations, or strategy, ideally at a marketplace or consumer platform
- Strong analytical foundation: comfortable working in data, building measurement frameworks, and translating insights into operating decisions
- Proven experience partnering with Product and Engineering on ranking, search, personalization, or merchandising
- Ability to navigate ambiguity and drive alignment across senior stakeholders with competing priorities
- Clear communicator who can influence technical roadmaps at a senior level without direct ownership
**Nice to have:**
- Background in search/ranking, recommendations, or merchandising systems
- SQL or equivalent hands-on analytics capability
