Supervisor, Service Recovery

About Airbnb and the AirCover Team

Airbnb, founded in 2007, connects millions of hosts and guests globally, fostering authentic connections within communities. The AirCover team is crucial to this mission, supporting Hosts and guests during critical incidents that impact trust in the platform. This fast-moving, high-stakes environment demands accurate, timely, and defensible decisions.

We are seeking a resilient and highly skilled leader who excels under pressure, steering teams through urgent, sensitive, and complex escalations. This role requires the ability to manage multiple high-impact cases concurrently, provide sound judgment with incomplete information, and maintain steady direction for both the team and senior stakeholders. You will act as the operational leader for Service Recovery when the Operations Manager is unavailable.

This position demands a strategic mindset, exceptional stakeholder management, and the ability to build and develop a high-performing team of executive-facing escalation specialists.

The Impact You Will Make

As Supervisor, Service Recovery, you will guide your team in delivering best-in-class support during critical and time-sensitive escalations. You will manage competing priorities, navigate ambiguity, and ensure rigor, consistency, and empathy are maintained under pressure. This role is instrumental in shaping the broader AirCover escalation strategy and coaching the team to become trusted, high-judgment escalation handlers.

A Typical Day as Supervisor, Service Recovery

Team Leadership & Operations

• Own and manage the end-to-end people strategy: onboarding, capability building, continuous feedback, and performance management.
• Serve as the primary leader during high-pressure moments or in the Operations Manager's absence, ensuring continuity of service, judgment, and decision-making.
• Build a culture of accountability, clear expectations, and operational discipline.
• Drive high-velocity prioritization, enabling the team to manage multiple urgent escalations while maintaining quality and adherence to protocols.
• Create and own monitoring metrics to ensure best-in-class community service.

Escalation & Case Management

• Oversee complex, sensitive, and time-critical escalations carrying brand, legal, financial, or trust risks.
• Serve on call as needed for incident response.
• Act as an escalation point for specialists and analysts for executive-level, major, and cross-functional incidents requiring fast, senior-level decision-making.
• Provide hands-on support for challenging cases, ensuring consistent direction, narrative, and airtight risk mitigation.
• Strengthen the team’s ability to independently handle high-judgment work by creating frameworks, playbooks, and clear escalation routing.

Stakeholder Management & Influence

• Build strong relationships with senior stakeholders across Legal, Fraud and Safety Ops, Community Policy, Product, and Market Operations.
• Communicate effectively with executive audiences, synthesizing complex information and recommending clear paths forward under tight timelines.
• Influence cross-functional partners to drive resolution, unblock key decisions, and improve operational readiness for emerging risks.

Continuous Improvement & Strategic Impact

• Identify systemic weaknesses in processes, policies, and tools, driving measurable improvements.
• Partner with the wider AirCover and Scaled Ops teams to shape roadmaps, strengthen safeguards, and refine global high-stakes escalation management.
• Lead or contribute to cross-functional projects enhancing the end-to-end escalation ecosystem.

Your Expertise

• 4–6+ years of experience leading teams in high-pressure escalation, crisis management, or risk-related environments.
• Proven incident management experience in a fast-paced setting.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple urgent, complex cases simultaneously without compromising quality or judgment.
• Strong performance management skills and experience developing specialists into senior-caliber roles.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication, including crafting executive-ready narratives under time pressure.
• Proven ability to influence and align senior stakeholders despite differing priorities.
• High analytical capability and comfort making decisions in ambiguous, evolving contexts.
• Strong operational judgment, balancing risk mitigation with customer experience.
• A calm, grounded leadership style that provides steadiness to the team in high-stakes moments.
• Experience hiring and managing globally dispersed employees is a plus.

Location and Benefits

This position is Canada - Remote Eligible, requiring residency in an Airbnb Canada, Inc. registered province (currently Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Saskatchewan). Occasional office work or offsites may be required. Airbnb is committed to inclusion and offers reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities.

The annual base pay range for this role in Canada is $78,000—$89,000 CAD, subject to factors like experience and market demands. The role may also include bonus, equity, benefits, and Employee Travel Credits.

Key skills/competency

• Escalation Management
• Crisis Management
• Risk Mitigation
• Team Leadership
• Stakeholder Management
• Operational Judgement
• Incident Response
• Performance Management
• Strategic Communication
• Process Improvement