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:
As a Lead Experience Designer supporting international expansion initiatives, you will collaborate with cross-regional partners such as country managers, localization experts, researchers, product specialists, engineers, and data scientists to craft meaningful and inclusive products that empower guests and hosts around the world.
Our design charter is to foster emotional connection with our community while keeping usability and accessibility as prime virtues. We practice inclusive design across the online and offline experiences we create.
The difference you will make:
As a Lead Experience Designer, you are an experienced practitioner who combines strong expertise in product localization with excellent design execution and storytelling skills. You will translate bold visions into thoughtful design solutions and deliver high-quality, end-to-end experiences for complex initiatives.
You’ll be responsible for leading the design of international product experiences, market launches, or key partnerships. You will drive initiatives from research to execution across platforms and devices, ensuring quality, usability, and cultural relevance.
The Lead Experience Designer is an individual contributor (IC) role reporting to a Design Manager.
A typical day:
- Accountable for complex feature-level or initiative-level projects, leads regional/market launches or key partnerships — shape objectives, set the design approach, and deliver detailed execution with systematic thinking and craft excellence.
- Apply international perspectives to ensure solutions are locally relevant while consistent with Airbnb’s product and brand architecture.
- Partner with Country Managers, Product Managers, Engineers, Data Scientists, Researchers, and Localization Managers to define problems, map user flows, prototype interactions, and deliver experiences.
- Influence team-level decisions through clear design rationales and storytelling; help navigate ambiguity and solve complex design problems.
- Scope projects (in partnership with DPMs, PMs, and Engineers), contributing to design process definition and task allocation.
Your expertise:
- Designer with 8+ years of experience.
- Experienced in leading feature-level initiatives and accountable for complex, high-impact projects.
- Skilled in navigating ambiguity, defining problems, and driving design solutions.
- Strong interaction and visual design skills with proven ability to raise the quality bar.
- Data-informed and user-centered: capable of turning insights into actionable design outcomes.
- Effective communicator with strong presentation and collaboration skills across disciplines.
- Experience in 0-to-1 initiatives or redesign of significant product areas within a mature design system.
- Solid understanding of business and technology constraints.
- English proficiency required; strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Exposure to diverse cultures and environments forming a global perspective is a plus.
Notes: Our job titles may span more than one career level.
Top Skills
What We Do
Airbnb is a community based on connection and belonging—a community that was born in 2008 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to 4 million hosts who have welcomed over 800 million guest arrivals to about 100,000 cities in almost every country and region across the globe. Hosts on Airbnb are everyday people who share their worlds to provide guests with the feeling of connection and being at home. At Airbnb, we believe that hosts, guests and the communities where we operate are all stakeholders we have a responsibility to serve, and that by serving them alongside our employees and investors, we will build an enduringly successful company.
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