Service Recovery Team Lead

The Community You'll Join

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.

Airbnb is a mission-driven company: to help create a world where everyone can feel at home anywhere. The AirCover team supports this mission by advocating for hosts and travelers when things go wrong — often under scrutiny and at times that materially impact trust in our platform. We operate in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment where decisions must be precise, timely, and justifiable.

We are looking for a resilient and highly skilled leader who thrives under pressure and excels at leading teams during urgent, sensitive, and complex escalations. This leader is capable of simultaneously managing multiple high-impact cases, demonstrating sound judgment even when facts are incomplete, and maintaining stable direction for the team and senior stakeholders. You will act as the operational lead for service recovery in the absence of the Operations Manager.

This role requires strategic vision, exceptional stakeholder management skills, and the ability to build and develop a high-performing team of escalation specialists capable of interacting with executive leadership.

The Difference You'll Make

In this role, you will guide the Service Recovery Team Lead team to provide first-class support during our most sensitive and critical escalations. You will manage competing priorities, navigate ambiguity, and ensure rigor, consistency, and empathy are maintained, even under pressure. You will help shape AirCover's overall escalation strategy while coaching the team to become trusted responders with strong judgment.

A Typical Day

Team Leadership and Operations

• Assume and manage the end-to-end talent management strategy for the team: onboarding, capacity building, continuous feedback, and performance management.
• Act as the primary leader during high-pressure moments or when the Operations Manager is absent, ensuring continuity of service, judgment, and decision-making.
• Foster a culture of accountability, clear expectations, and operational discipline within the team.
• Drive rapid prioritization, helping the team manage multiple urgent escalations while maintaining quality and adherence to protocols.
• Create and manage tracking metrics to ensure world-class community service.

Escalation and Case Management

• Oversee the handling of complex, sensitive, and critical escalations involving brand, legal, financial, or trust risks.
• Be on-call, as needed, for incident response.
• Serve as an escalation point for specialists and analysts during executive-level escalations, major incidents, and cross-functional escalations requiring rapid decision-making at a higher level.
• Provide direct support for the most challenging cases, ensuring direction, narrative consistency, and rigorous risk mitigation.
• Build the team's capacity to autonomously manage high-judgment tasks by creating frameworks, playbooks, and clear routing processes.

Stakeholder Management and Influence

• Build strong relationships with senior partners in Legal, Fraud and Security, Community Policies, Product, and Market Operations.
• Communicate effectively with executives, synthesizing complex information and recommending a clear path forward within tight deadlines.
• Influence cross-functional partners to drive resolution, unlock key decisions, and improve operational readiness for emerging risks.

Continuous Improvement and Strategic Impact

• Identify systemic weaknesses in processes, policies, and tools, and lead measurable improvements.
• Collaborate with broader AirCover and Scaled Ops teams to define roadmaps, strengthen safeguards, and refine high-stakes escalation management globally.
• Lead or contribute to cross-functional projects that enhance the end-to-end escalation ecosystem.

Your Expertise

• 4 to 6+ years of experience leading teams in high-pressure escalation, crisis management, or risk-related environments.
• Proven experience managing incidents in a fast-paced environment.
• Demonstrated ability to simultaneously manage multiple urgent and complex cases without sacrificing quality or judgment.
• Strong performance management skills and experience developing high-caliber escalation or risk specialists.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to write executive-level narratives under pressure.
• Proven ability to influence and align senior stakeholders, even when priorities or perspectives differ.
• Strong analytical capability and comfort making decisions in ambiguous and evolving contexts.
• Strong operational judgment and ability to balance risk mitigation with customer experience.
• A calm and composed leadership style that brings stability to the team during tense and fast-paced moments.
• Experience hiring and managing globally distributed employees is a plus.

Your Location

Due to the nature of this role, the successful candidate will be required to be based in Canada in order to perform their work. Currently, employees can be located in: British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, Alberta or Saskatchewan. This list is continuously updated, please check with us if the provinces you live in are on the list. If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you of the provinces in which you are eligible to work.

Our Commitment to Inclusion and Belonging

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest possible talent pool. We believe that diversity of ideas fosters innovation and engagement, and allows us to attract creative individuals and develop the best products, services, and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We also strive to provide an inclusive application and interview process for individuals with disabilities. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation to submit an application, please contact us at: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. Please include your full name, the position you are applying for, and the accommodations needed to assist you in the recruitment process.

We ask that you only contact us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from completing our online application.

We use automated tools to help our recruiting team efficiently review a large number of applications. All final hiring decisions are made by a human.

This position is for an existing vacancy within the organization.

Key skills/competency

• Crisis Management
• Escalation Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Team Leadership
• Operational Discipline
• Risk Mitigation
• Strategic Thinking
• Communication Skills
• Analytical Thinking
• Performance Management
• Incident Response