About the role

The Senior Manager, Preferred (M4) is a senior frontline leadership role responsible for leading a team of Growth Specialists through the next evolution of Zillow Preferred's partner support and growth model. This leader will help translate Zillow's AI-enabled service strategy into clear frontline execution, scalable operating mechanisms, strong coaching practices, and measurable partner outcomes.

You will contribute to strategy, execute operating mechanisms, lead through change, and partner cross-functionally to build the systems, workflows, guardrails, and talent needed to scale a new support model across Zillow Preferred.

The right person will be comfortable discussing partner experience, organizational design, escalation triggers, operating metrics, and leadership capability. You will help define when AI should handle the work, when humans should step in, and how to continuously improve the model over time.

What You'll Do
Operationalize AI powered partner support strategy

• Help refine and evolve the strategy for a scalable AI-powered, human-in-the-loop support model for Zillow Preferred partners, balancing growth, experience, quality, and cost to serve.
• Translate company and segment strategy into clear workflows, team expectations, coaching practices, and cross-functional routines that help Growth Specialists, managers, AI tooling, and partners work together to drive partner outcomes.
• Help move the organization from recurring bespoke servicing motions toward product-led, trigger-based, and insight-driven engagement models while preserving trust and strategic human judgment.

Lead a high impact team through transformation

• Lead and develop a team of Growth Specialists, setting a high bar for judgment, accountability, coaching quality, and customer impact.
• Build an organization that learns how to operate effectively in a tech-enabled environment-where teams use AI, signals, and workflows to prioritize work, but apply human judgment to nuanced, high-stakes, or ambiguous situations.
• Recruit, coach, and retain high performing talent who can develop others, operate with resilience in ambiguity, and reinforce a culture of innovation, inclusion, ownership, and high performance.

Build and run the operating system for scale

• Establish the operating cadences, performance reviews, escalation paths, quality mechanisms, and inspection rhythms that make this support model measurable, repeatable, and scalable.
• Apply clear rules for when human review or intervention is required, and ensure the team is trained on real workflows rather than generic AI concepts.
• Use leading indicators, alerts, and partner health signals to prioritize where the team should intervene, and ensure interventions are timely, strategic, and tied to measurable outcomes.

Drive partner success and growth through the team

• Ensure your organization helps partners adopt Zillow tools, improve operational performance, and grow in ways that benefit both the partner and the customer experience.
• Coach leaders and specialists to turn data into clear action plans, reinforce durable behavior change, and step in effectively when partners are stuck, off-track, or at risk.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for sensitive or high-impact partner situations that require executive judgment, strategic tradeoffs, or cross-functional orchestration.

Partner cross-functionally to build what's next

• Bring frontline insights into product and operations discussions so Zillow continues to improve AI quality, self-service journeys, escalation design, and partner experience.
• Influence senior stakeholders on tradeoffs, sequencing, investment priorities, and what should scale across the broader Preferred organization.

Act as a leader of the business

• Connect partner support outcomes to broader Zillow business goals including growth, retention, adoption, attach, and long-term marketplace health.
• Identify systemic issues early, make principled decisions in ambiguity, and shape solutions beyond your immediate org.
• Represent this emerging model in leadership forums, helping Zillow define what a modern, AI-enabled organization should look like.

This role has been categorized as a Field position. "Field" employees perform the majority of their work in a specified geographic location set by their management team. Employees are expected to live within a reasonable commuting distance to their region and/or service area. ZG has not defined a reasonable distance and expects employees will use judgment in determining this for themselves and understand the implications regarding time commitment and cost of daily commute.

In California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC the standard base pay range for this role is $155,200.00 - $247,800.00 annually. This base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.In Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia the standard base pay range for this role is $147,400.00 - $235,400.00 annually. The base pay range is specific to these locations and may not be applicable to other locations.

In addition to a competitive base salary this position is also eligible for equity awards based on factors such as experience, performance and location. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance and location. Employees in this role will not be paid below the salary threshold for exempt employees in the state where they reside.

Who you are

• 7+ years of relevant leadership experience in customer success, partner operations, support strategy, account management, service operations, or a related field, including experience leading high-performing frontline teams; experience leading leaders or scaled frontline organizations is preferred.
• Proven success building or leading teams in environments undergoing significant change, especially where new tools, workflows, or operating models had to be introduced and adopted.
• Strong strategic thinker who can connect customer needs, operational design, and business outcomes-and turn a broad vision into a practical plan.
• Comfortable with and pragmatic about AI-enabled workflows, with the ability to help teams adopt new tools responsibly and apply human judgment where it matters.
• Strong systems thinker who can design operating mechanisms, inspect performance, and use data to drive prioritization, accountability, and course correction.
• Exceptional people leader who sets a high bar, develops talent intentionally, and creates clarity and momentum in ambiguous environments.
• Executive presence with the ability to influence senior internal stakeholders and partner leaders in complex or high-stakes situations.
• Strong cross-functional operator who can move seamlessly between frontline realities and enterprise priorities.
• Experience in real estate, proptech, marketplace businesses, or performance-based partner models is strongly preferred.

What Success Looks Like

In this role, success means more than hitting near-term targets. Success means building a team and operating model that can scale with Zillow's ambitions. It means partners get faster, clearer, more effective support; the team knows when to lean on AI and when to lean in as humans; leaders have the data and mechanisms to improve performance continuously; and Zillow has a durable model for delivering partner success at scale.