Senior Manager, Content & Knowledge Architecture

Airbnb•Washington, OR

20d

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Content & Knowledge Architecture will establish and evolve content engineering within Airbnb’s Content & Knowledge Management (CKM) organization. The role designs and manages the systems and practices that make content strategic, scalable, reusable across surfaces, and efficiently maintained. It owns CKM inputs and influences the infrastructure used to construct and ingest an information layer for different audiences and product surfaces, including public Help Center content, internal knowledge bases, customer-support agents, and applications such as AI chatbots. The position sets direction for how knowledge is created, updated, structured, organized, stored, retrieved, and surfaced. It leads teams responsible for taxonomy and ontology, content tooling and AI-focused optimization, and content operations planning. The manager defines team ownership and priorities, allocates resources, develops leaders, and ensures the teams perform together. The role also partners with Product, Engineering, Analytics, Design, and other senior stakeholders to align knowledge systems and CKM content with launches and broader business priorities. The successful candidate will bring deep content and technical fluency, including an understanding of how user-facing content, metadata, measurement and authoring systems, and consuming applications depend on one another. They will guide governance, quality, performance measurement, and continuous improvement while building an inclusive, high-performing team and establishing clear standards across related disciplines. The successful applicant must be based in California, Washington, or Oregon. Airbnb encourages qualified individuals to apply and strives to provide a disability-inclusive application and interview process. Airbnb is an equal opportunity employer.

Requirements

12+ years of progressive experience in content strategy, content operations, or knowledge management, including substantial experience with content systems, taxonomy, and/or information architecture at scale.
5+ years managing managers, with a track record of developing high-performing, distributed teams and steering them toward a shared strategy and standard.
Hands-on experience owning talent decisions, including hiring, performance management, calibration, and succession planning.
Deep expertise in content strategy, knowledge management, and information architecture, with demonstrated understanding of AI/ML applications in content operations.
Expert knowledge of content management systems and authoring tooling.
Practical experience with AI-powered content optimization.
Ability to partner directly with engineers on system architecture, data structures, and retrieval mechanics; deep technical fluency is essential.
Ability to collaborate and execute at scale across distinct disciplines.
Executive presence and ability to build and present business cases to VP- and C-level stakeholders.
Proven ability to steer multiple related teams and their leaders, remove ambiguity for executing parties, and raise the capability of a strong team.
Proven people leadership, including hiring, developing, and retaining senior talent; coaching leaders through growth and difficult conversations; and building an inclusive team.
Ability to join an established team and lead it through change by earning trust, respecting existing expertise, and aligning leaders around shared goals.
Must be based in California, Washington, or Oregon.

Nice To Haves

Experience in customer support, contact center operations, or a similar global service organization.
Advanced degree in a relevant discipline such as Computer Science, Information Science, or Technical Writing; equivalent practical experience is also accepted.

Responsibilities

Define and champion content engineering within CKM, establishing standards for structuring, storing, and delivering knowledge across surfaces and applications.
Own the roadmap for metadata, taxonomy, and information architecture to improve content organization, discovery, and reuse.
Partner with Product and Engineering to define and prioritize tooling investments that improve content quality, efficiency, and innovation.
Establish governance frameworks and embed standards and quality checks into content creation, review, and publishing workflows.
Define metrics and reporting that provide visibility into content health, coverage, performance, and authoring efficiency.
Coordinate across functions to keep CKM content aligned with product launches and other business needs.
Lead and develop managers and senior team members by setting goals, providing candid feedback, and holding them accountable for results.
Own talent decisions, including hiring, calibration, promotion, and succession planning, and apply clear leveling criteria.
Define roles and ownership across taxonomy and ontology, tooling and AI-focused optimization, and content operations planning.
Set priorities and allocate resources and capacity across the group’s programs and roadmap.
Coach managers on team design and career development, and support senior team members’ growth.
Sponsor a diverse group of talent and model Airbnb’s belonging behaviors.
Build strategic relationships with senior leaders across Product, Engineering, Analytics, Design, and other functions.
Champion technical and data fluency, editorial and operational excellence, and continuous improvement across the team.