Bait & switch, Second-class citizen outside of HQ - Customer Experience Specialist Airbnb Employee Review

2.0
Jan 2, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Being a remote employee. Not being micro-managed. Health & dental benefits.

Cons

Being a remote employee- These positions are becoming officially dead-ended. If you don't work at HQ or Dublin, your ability to move beyond a team lead doesn't exist. And it's on purpose. Most of Customer Support is outside of HQ and are remote employees, but are being held to unrealistic, ridiculous metrics. Not only that, but part of what was so cool about joining Airbnb as a remote employee was the possibility of spending time in other countries and living out of an Airbnb listing while working- that's been axed. We're given travel coupons, but in Customer Support, we can't travel during holidays or high travel season (ie: 6 months of the year), so it's a fairly useless 'perk.' I'd much rather be paid the $30 or so per day in a food stipend that people in HQ get by being fed 3 meals a day. And/or get paid more in cash. A real bonus of cold, hard cash would go a long way- especially after seeing one of the founders featured in a Vanity Fair article about him attending Sun Valley, described as 'Summer Camp for Billionaires.' Being a remote employee is like being a second-class citizen. We're constantly an after-thought, even though we're the majority of people dealing with daily unpleasantness to do with guests and hosts dealing with occasionally traumatic events. We aren't trained in psychology or grief management, yet that's what we cope with, and all at an hourly salary that shows how little we're actually valued compared to lip service of how great we are.

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5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Laid back, strong mentorship/training, and good team chemistry.

Cons

Online only, they had summer branch offices, but nobody went in.

5.0
Jun 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Airbnb's mission of creating a world where anyone can belong anywhere strongly resonates with me. I'm excited by the opportunity to build products that operate at global scale and directly impact millions of users. My background in full-stack engineering, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and AI-powered applications aligns well with Airbnb's focus on innovation, reliability, and exceptional user experiences. I am particularly attracted to Airbnb's engineering culture, emphasis on ownership, and commitment to solving complex technical challenges while delivering meaningful value to hosts, guests, and communities worldwide.

Cons

One challenge of working at Airbnb is the complexity that comes with operating a global platform at scale. Engineering teams must balance reliability, performance, compliance, and user experience across many markets and stakeholders. While this can make development and decision-making more complex, it is also one of the aspects that makes the work technically interesting and professionally rewarding.

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