Principal – Strategic Finance & Analytics

The Community You Will Join: 

As a Strategic Finance & Analytics Principal, you will partner closely with leaders across business operations, product, analytics, data science, and adjacent Strategic Finance teams to help build and grow new initiatives at Airbnb. This is a high-visibility, high-impact role. 

The Strategic Finance & Analytics team sits at the intersection of finance, strategy, and the business, partnering directly with leaders to decide where Airbnb invests, how we grow, and what we do next. We expect every member of the team to bring a CFO mindset to budget management, producing actionable insights, owning our performance story, and supporting day-to-day execution.

Why join us:

• A seat at the table. We're advisors, not just analysts. Our work shapes real decisions, not just decks.
• A steep learning curve. Small, lean teams and a focus on internal mobility means broad exposure across product and business areas.

If you like ambiguity, moving fast, and building the answer instead of just reporting it, you'll fit right in.

The Difference You Will Make

You will be the strategic finance and analytics lead for an emerging program at Airbnb, helping leadership decide where to invest, how to size initiatives, and which levers are worth scaling. You will become the subject matter expert on the economics of these programs: how they drive guest and host behavior, what they cost, and what they return. Because many of these programs are early-stage, the financial and analytical foundation often does not yet exist, so you will define and build it.

This role requires a strong commercial mindset, with the ability to size opportunities, evaluate returns, and translate performance and data insights into clear business implications and strategic recommendations for senior leadership. 

The ideal candidate brings a combination of sharp analytical instincts, business acumen, and the ability to distill complex information into crisp executive-ready stories. You relish the opportunity to roll up their sleeves, and are a self-starter comfortable embracing the adventure of a fast-paced, ambiguous environment.

A Typical Day:

• Strategic Insights: Conduct analytical and financial deep dives to inform and shape key decisions. You should be comfortable both leading the work independently and partnering with the cross-functional teams to deliver a joint output. 
• Investment Decision Support: Build the business cases behind program investments. Size the opportunity, model the returns, and frame tradeoffs so leadership can decide where to place bets and how large they should be.
• Performance Management: Own performance measurement, including defining KPIs, setting goals and OKRs, and building reporting and forecasting that connect early signals to guest and host outcomes, revenue, and long-term value. Support the planning cadences (annual planning, long-range planning, and monthly or quarterly forecasts).
• Program Economics and ROI: Develop and pressure-test the economics of programs, including incentive and benefit costs, guest and host response, and incremental impact.
• Presentations to Leadership: Synthesize complex data into clear narratives and recommendations for senior leadership. Influence cross functional stakeholders to drive alignment on high impact investment and operating decisions.

Your Expertise:

• 10+ years of relevant finance and analytical experience across a mix of strategic finance, investment banking, private equity, strategy/management consulting, and/or business operations.
• Superb financial modeling skills and extensive experience with quantitative and qualitative financial analysis, including building business cases and ROI frameworks.
• Highly proficient in business analytics. You will need to independently extract, analyze, and synthesize large datasets.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with audiences at various levels. You enjoy working with fragmented data and insights and synthesizing them into a story with recommendations.
• Proven ability to influence cross-functional partners and drive alignment in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment where frameworks are still being built.
• High ownership, strong judgment, and attention to detail.
• AI proficient or able to become AI proficient (Claude or Gemini).
• Experience with growth strategies, evaluating ROI, and scalability of marketplaces, loyalty, incentive, or growth programs is a big plus.

Your Location:

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list  If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from.

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: [email protected]. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process. 

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.

Equal Employment Opportunity:

Airbnb values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Airbnb are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristic. 

Pay Range 168000 - 206000 USD