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: We are seeking a Staff Data Scientist to lead the design, measurement, and optimization of our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and retention initiatives. This role sits at the intersection of marketing science, personalization, and lifecycle strategy. You will own the data-driven frameworks that define how we understand, engage, and reward our customers across channels. You’ll partner closely with marketing, product, finance and engineering to design loyalty mechanics that drive incremental engagement and long-term value—backed by rigorous experimentation, causal inference, and machine learning. Our team is responsible for developing the underlying science to design, build and deploy models that characterize, infer and predict customer behavior.  We aim to deliver a timely, personalized and compelling experience to our customers. The Difference You Will Make: In this role, you will shape the scientific foundation of Airbnb’s CRM and retention strategy - translating business goals into measurable outcomes that drive engagement, loyalty, and long-term value. By leveraging Airbnb’s rich first- and third-party data, you’ll uncover deep insights into customer behavior and motivation, guiding data science direction for personalized marketing and lifecycle growth. You’ll design and evaluate loyalty mechanics through rigorous experimentation and causal inference, model the financial impact of retention programs, and optimize strategies in close partnership with product, marketing, finance, and engineering. As a thought leader, you’ll mentor other scientists and analysts, establish best practices for uplift modeling and CLV analysis, and ensure our programs are both impactful and measurable.

A Typical Day

• Lead the design, measurement, and optimization of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and retention initiatives
• Own data-driven frameworks for understanding, engaging, and rewarding customers across channels
• Partner with marketing, product, finance, and engineering to design loyalty mechanics
• Develop models to characterize, infer, and predict customer behavior
• Shape the scientific foundation of Airbnb’s CRM and retention strategy
• Translate business goals into measurable outcomes driving engagement, loyalty, and long-term value
• Leverage first- and third-party data to uncover insights into customer behavior and motivation
• Guide data science direction for personalized marketing and lifecycle growth
• Design and evaluate loyalty mechanics through experimentation and causal inference
• Model financial impact of retention programs
• Mentor scientists and analysts, establish best practices for uplift modeling and CLV analysis
• Leverage data assets to understand customer journey and motivation
• Translate business goals into measurable hypotheses quantifying engagement, retention, and revenue impact
• Advise and mentor on experimentation, uplift modeling, and CLV analysis
• Design programs to increase customer engagement and retention
• Model customer behavior to forecast financial impact of retention programs
• Partner with teams to simulate program outcomes and optimize for engagement and ROI
• Study and simulate marketplace dynamics in the travel industry
• Design and evaluate A/B and quasi-experimental tests for CRM campaigns and loyalty interventions
• Develop causal inference models to isolate impact of initiatives
• Work with engineers to productionize models and ensure data pipelines

Your Expertise

• 6+ years of relevant experience and a PhD in a technical field related to mathematics, computer science, causal inference, economics, predictive modeling or optimization
• 9+ years of industry experience with a BS/Masters in these same fields
• Expertise in SQL, Python or R
• Working knowledge of marketing measurement, lifecycle analytics, and customer lifetime value modeling
• Deep knowledge of advanced experimental design and causal inference
• Experience with loyalty, retention, or CRM programs (subscription, travel, retail, or digital platforms preferred)
• Strong stakeholder communication and ability to translate complex analyses into business actions
• Advanced statistical and machine learning expertise (Bayesian methods, uplift modeling, causal ML)
• Proven record of leadership driving cross-functional initiatives from concept to production

Benefits

• Bonus
• Equity
• Benefits
• Employee Travel Credits

How We'll Take Care of You

$194,000—$240,000 USD