Senior Data Scientist, People Analytics & Research

The Community You Will Join

People Analytics & Research is a strong team of Data Scientists, Data Engineers, and Analysts. Our work impacts stakeholders in our People function and across the business. In this role, you'll take on some of the hardest questions about Airbnb's workforce—how we recruit, pay, develop, and retain our people—partnering with leaders across Recruiting, Compensation, Talent, and the wider business to turn rigorous analysis into decisions they act on.

The Difference You Will Make

The People Analytics & Research team is looking for an experienced Data Scientist to lead and/or contribute to our most important research—applying causal inference and quasi-experimental methods to high-stakes people questions: how we recruit, hire, promote, and retain a best-in-class workforce; how we keep key company processes fair; and how work itself is changing. Employee listening and survey analysis are part of the mix, but the heart of the role is rigorous inferential research on observational people data. The role is highly cross-functional, partnering with Recruiting, Talent Leaders, Compensation, Legal, and Diversity & Belonging.

A Typical Day

• Collaborate with partners and stakeholders to understand people-related business problems and gather relevant people data to analyze.
• Utilize appropriate statistical models and data science methodologies to gain insights, explain, or predict a wide variety of people-related processes, such as recruiting and hiring, promotion, retention, pay equity, productivity, and organizational effectiveness.
• Translate data and insights into meaningful visualizations and stories to drive strategy, action, and decision-making with leaders across the business.
• Align research priorities with business priorities and take a customer-focused mindset in working with stakeholders.
• Lead the team's compensation analytics—the recurring, legally sensitive analyses that inform Total Rewards decisions on pay, compensation structure, and talent awards—in close partnership with Employment Legal and Total Rewards.
• Lead design and measurement of Airbnb's quality-of-hire metric with Recruiting, and own sensitive statutory and governance reporting.
• Be a constant learner, active listener, and teacher to advance data science, people analytics, and Airbnb.
• Use AI fluently—including the team's AirPanda platform and LLM-based agents—to accelerate analysis, prototyping, and synthesis, and to extend what a single researcher can deliver.

Your Expertise

• 5+ years in industry experience and a Master's degree/PhD in a quantitative field.
• Deep experience with causal inference on observational data and quasi-experimental research design and analysis.
• Proficiency in R or Python for statistical analysis, and SQL for data access.
• Familiarity with survey design and analysis, as one of several methods in the toolkit.
• Experience applying data science to compensation, recruiting, or broader workforce and organizational questions, including work with legally sensitive data.
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively to cross-functional partners of varying technical levels and drive impact.
• Experience working with large practical datasets.

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. You must live in an eligible state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity.