Staff UX Researcher, Incubations

About the role

Staff UX Researcher, Incubations

Airbnb was founded in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home. The company has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 2 billion guest arrivals in nearly every country worldwide. Hosts offer unique stays and experiences that help guests connect with communities in an authentic way. This role is US-Remote Eligible, with monthly in-person working sessions required at the San Francisco Airbnb office.

The research function at Airbnb originated with guidance from Paul Graham, who advised the founders to "go to your users." The founders embraced this principle and traveled to meet hosts that same weekend. Research value has remained embedded in Airbnb's product culture from those early days.

You will join this research-focused community as a Staff UX Researcher. In this position, you will own research for new incubation areas, framing ambiguous questions and shaping strategy. You will work at the intersection of early exploration and execution, defining what comes next for guests and hosts through rigorous methods. You will determine when to move quickly and when to deepen investigation, while bringing senior stakeholders along on the journey.

A typical day in this role involves owning end-to-end research for new incubation areas, from question framing to delivering recommendations. You will use appropriate qualitative and quantitative methods to generate fast, actionable insights. You will triangulate across data sources and historical learnings to identify signals in ambiguous, fast-moving environments. You will balance speed and rigor, delivering rapid insights when needed and deeper studies when decisions demand greater justification. You will partner with Product, Design, Business Operations, and Data Science to shape strategy from research findings. You will communicate clearly and persuasively with stakeholders at all levels, including senior executives. You will craft compelling narratives that make user needs, pain points, and opportunities impossible to ignore. You will lead brainstorming sessions and workshops that translate insights into concrete product decisions and strategy.

Your expertise should include 10 or more years of research experience, with fluency in both qualitative and quantitative methods. You should have hands-on experience running statistical analysis and designing or analyzing surveys, as well as leading foundational qualitative studies. You should have a track record of delivering impactful insights in ambiguous, early-stage, or rapidly changing problem spaces. You should have experience working directly with senior leadership to influence strategy at scale. Exceptional written and verbal communication skills are essential. Strong multi-tasking abilities are required to own multiple projects at various stages simultaneously.

Experience with AI tools for user research is expected. Familiarity with Claude Code is a bonus. Comfort with SQL and direct data exploration is preferred. A background in consumer products or hospitality contexts is valuable. Educational backgrounds in Human-Computer Interaction, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Statistics, or equivalent practical experience are common, though strong researchers come from many fields.

In this role, you will set the research vision for new incubation streams while coordinating methods and stakeholders. You will design studies that convert messy problems into clear insights guiding product decisions. You will synthesize findings from analytics, interviews, and logs to reveal patterns in user behavior. You will ship research outcomes that move teams, using clear stories and visuals to support decisions. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to align roadmaps and experiments. You will translate complex insights for executives, ensuring recommendations are understood and acted upon. You will run workshops that spark shared understanding and turn observations into concrete options. You will partner with cross-functional teams to turn research into measurable outcomes for hosts and guests.

Compensation for this role ranges from $183,200 to $239,200 USD per year. These figures represent target base pay only and do not include additional compensation for benefits, equity, or other incentives.

Practical notes: Please What you'll do

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