Localization Manager, Simplified Chinese

The Community You Will Join:

No global movement springs from individuals. It takes an entire team united behind something big. Airbnb helps anyone belong anywhere as the world’s largest community-driven hospitality company. Every day, we connect thousands of guests and hosts online, leading to meaningful experiences in the real world. We’re helping people live like locals in parts unknown while breaking down cultural barriers and bringing people together. 

Do you wake up everyday asking yourself how you can impact the creation of a truly local experience that delights global users? Do you love working with content, design, marketing and engineering teams? Do you want to be part of one of the teams that is actively working on bringing to life Airbnb’s mission, where everyone can belong anywhere? Do you love to work in a fast-paced, fun, fast-growing company? Do you like to work in a multicultural team? Do you love owning the localization strategy for your market?

If you answered yes to all the questions above, we would love to talk to you, as the Localization team at Airbnb is looking for an experienced Localization Manager in China. The role is an Individual Contributor. 

The Difference You Will Make:

Airbnb is expecting the biggest travel rebound of the century with COVID receding world wide and fully reopening cross-border travel. Airbnb has been reinventing itself as a consequence of IPO and the post pandemic world. Airbnb Marketing and Product strategy has evolved and is becoming more sophisticated and demanding. As a consequence the Localization team has been growing fast with the company and steadily evolving and increasing our scope, impact and influence. 

Localization at Airbnb has fast evolved from being managers of translation services to be drivers of international growth, partners with launching teams across all content at Airbnb, and have also launched complex core product capabilities like Translation Engine (Airbnb specialized machine translation service) across all product flows with user generated content.

We are continuing our investment in hiring localization and internationalization experts that can drive and manage language strategy, collaborating with internal stakeholders and external partners to plan and design internationalized and localizable products beside supporting their translation needs.

Localization Managers serve as the linguistic and cultural expert in collaborating with local teams to drive business growth - adapting and developing product and services that meet local needs. You are the guardians of Airbnb’s tone, style, and voice, and the enforcers of quality and excellence in their languages. As a Localization Manager, you're not only passionate about languages and cultures, but also about giving our users a native experience across all platforms.  

If you want to shape the world of the sharing economy - Airbnb is the place to be. We work hard, we laugh a lot, we brainstorm nonstop, and we give the best high-fives in town. 

A Typical Day:

• Provide linguistic and cultural expertise in developing strategy to drive international growth, collaborating with both central and local teams 
• Provide linguistic and cultural consultancy, localization advocacy, and influence other teams in order to deliver the best possible user experience
• Proactively engage with stakeholders in the market for cultural insights and influence product changes
• Understand challenges in the localization process and lead language quality improvement initiatives at the language and team level
• Take ownership of the strategy to help achieve excellence in translation quality across all platforms
• Partner with translation and QA vendors to monitor and improve quality output of Simplified Chinese
• Coordinate language feedback from both users and Airbnb employees
• Develop and maintain linguistic and cultural standards and guidelines
• Help with copywriting for content marketing initiatives
• Proactively engage with internal and regional stakeholders to drive regional product initiatives
• Understand and actively research the needs of Airbnb international users
• Partner closely with the Language Lead to train vendor resources for optimized linguistic output
• Work with Localization Program Managers and Linguistic QA Managers to ensure we ship top quality products internationally

Your Expertise:

• 8 years of experience managing language quality and localization programs at a strategic level
• Fluency in English and rich knowledge of Simplified Chinese is a must
• Proven experience in translation, localization and language quality management
• Time management skills, ability to multitask, highly organized 
• Ability to show initiative and work independently, and drive initiatives at a strategic level
• Passion for translations and languages
• Experience using online translation software
• Excellent presentation and communication skills
• Experience in project/program management, partner/stakeholder management, with experience working across cross-functional teams and time-zones
• Ability to manage multiple and diverse stakeholders across businesses and leadership levels with excellent communication/presentation skills

Your Location

This position is China - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. Your recruiter will inform you what cities you are able to work from depending on your personal legal working identity and Airbnb internal policies.

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.

*Please submit your CV in English*