Design Manager, Production Design

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.

The Community You Will Join

Airbnb’s Design team is seeking a Senior Design Manager, Production Design to lead and evolve our production design practices into the future. This includes not only evolving our design system and ensuring its seamless integration across platforms but also partnering closely with feature work teams to ensure production excellence across live product surfaces. You’ll also collaborate with marketing creative teams to productionize their environments, ensuring that all assets align with our brand standards and quality expectations. Your leadership will ensure consistency and innovation across all these collaborative spaces.

 

The Difference You Will Make

As a Senior Design Manager, Production Design, you’ll define how the future of production design functions at Airbnb. This includes developing best practices that support clarity in specifications and handoff, establishing scalable tooling, and guiding production designers in creating assets that result in pixel-perfect, accessible, and globally inclusive experiences.

You’ll be actively involved in helping teams adopt our new system, guiding transitions from legacy components, aligning with evolving guidelines, and ensuring quality across a wide range of product surfaces. While also driving and identifying future ways of working in regards to automation, speed and craft.

 

A Typical Day

• Lead and manage a team of production designers, fostering a culture of collaboration, ownership, and craft excellence
• Oversee the implementation, maintenance, and transition of Airbnb’s design systems while ensuring consistency, accessibility, and readiness across all platforms
• Collaborate with feature teams and marketing creative teams to ensure seamless production workflows and high-quality asset delivery
• Define and refine production workflows, including clear handoff expectations and close collaboration with experience designers
• Work with engineering partners to ensure design fidelity through hands-on QA and scalable implementation checkpoints
• Partner with design technologists and internal tool builders to identify inefficiencies and scope automation opportunities
• Create and maintain documentation, redlines, templates, and specs that improve designer efficiency and cross-functional clarity
• Contribute to the refinement of components, iconography, and UI patterns while ensuring system cohesion across all product surfaces
• Build team rituals that support mentorship, growth, and close integration with partner teams
  
  

Your Experience

• 10+ years in production design, design systems, or a related discipline, including at least 3 years in a leadership role
• Expertise working with large-scale production, design systems, including system migrations and onboarding teams to new libraries
• Deep proficiency in Figma, including variables, components, and branching workflows, and familiarity with tools like Sketch, Illustrator, and Photoshop
• Strong experience with specification development, redlining, accessibility, and localization
• Familiarity with DevMode or other handoff tooling, with a clear understanding of modern production and engineering workflows
• Skilled in partnering with engineers to drive QA processes and uphold implementation fidelity
• Experience shaping tooling improvements or contributing to automation initiatives is a plus
• Proficiency with tools such as Lotti, C4D, Photoshop & Illustrator would be a bonus

Why This Role?

• You’ll set the foundation for Airbnb’s production design discipline and drive high-impact design execution at scale.
• You’ll collaborate closely with top-tier design and engineering teams to deliver polished, high-quality experiences.
• You’ll influence and refine Airbnb’s design systems, ensuring consistency and innovation across all platforms.
• You’ll work in an inclusive, design-driven culture that values craft, precision, and thoughtful execution.

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.