Senior Manager, Preferred

About the Team

The Zillow Preferred group works with leading real estate professionals to create strong home shopper experiences through trusted partnerships, efficient operations, and Zillow’s product ecosystem. The team is shifting from a largely human-led support approach to a more scalable model that blends self-service, proactive monitoring, AI-assisted support, and human intervention where it adds the most value.

About the Role

The Senior Manager, Preferred (M4) will lead a team of Growth Specialists and help shape the next phase of Zillow Preferred’s partner support and growth approach. This is a frontline leadership role focused on turning an AI-enabled service vision into practical execution, repeatable operating routines, strong coaching, and measurable outcomes for partners.

The role requires someone who can think strategically, run operating mechanisms, guide teams through change, and collaborate across functions to build the systems, workflows, protections, and talent needed for scale. The leader should be comfortable discussing partner experience, organizational structure, escalation points, operating data, and leadership development. A key part of the job is deciding when AI should handle work, when people should step in, and how the model should improve over time.

What You’ll Do

• Shape and refine a scalable support model that blends AI and human judgment, while balancing growth, partner experience, quality, and service cost.
• Turn business and segment strategy into clear workflows, team expectations, coaching methods, and cross-functional habits that help Growth Specialists, managers, partners, and AI tools work together effectively.
• Move the organization away from ad hoc service handling toward trigger-based, product-led, and insight-driven engagement while preserving trust and thoughtful human decision-making.
• Lead and grow a team of Growth Specialists with high standards for judgment, accountability, coaching, and customer impact.
• Build a team that operates well in a technology-enabled environment by using AI signals and workflows to prioritize work while applying human judgment to complex, sensitive, or unclear situations.
• Hire, coach, and retain strong performers who can develop others, stay effective in ambiguity, and support a culture of innovation, inclusion, ownership, and high performance.
• Put in place the operating cadence, reviews, escalation paths, quality controls, and inspection routines needed to make the support model measurable and scalable.
• Define clear decision rules for when human review is needed, and make sure the team is trained on actual workflows rather than abstract AI concepts.
• Use alerts, leading indicators, and partner health signals to decide where the team should focus, ensuring interventions are timely, strategic, and outcome-oriented.
• Help partners adopt Zillow tools, improve operations, and grow in ways that support both partner success and customer experience.
• Coach managers and specialists to convert data into action plans, support lasting behavior change, and step in when partners are stalled, off track, or at risk.
• Act as a senior escalation point for sensitive or high-impact partner issues that require executive judgment, tradeoff decisions, or cross-functional coordination.
• Bring frontline insights into product and operations conversations to improve AI quality, self-service flows, escalation design, and the overall partner experience.
• Influence senior stakeholders on priorities, sequencing, investment choices, and what should scale across the wider Preferred organization.
• Connect partner support results to broader business goals such as growth, retention, adoption, attach, and marketplace health over the long term.
• Spot systemic issues early, make sound decisions in uncertain situations, and help shape solutions beyond the immediate team.
• Represent this evolving operating model in leadership forums and help define what a modern AI-enabled organization should look like.

Work Location

This is a field-based position. Field employees spend most of their time working within a specific geographic area assigned by management. Employees are expected to live within a reasonable commuting distance of their region and/or service area. A reasonable distance is not formally defined, so employees are expected to use their own judgment and consider commute time and cost.

Compensation

The base salary range varies by location. For California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington state, and Washington DC, the annual range is $155,200 to $247,800. For Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia, the annual range is $147,400 to $235,400.

This role is also eligible for equity awards, with the amount influenced by experience, performance, and location. Pay will not fall below the exempt salary threshold required by the employee’s state of residence.

Who You Are

• You bring 7 or more years of relevant leadership experience in customer success, partner operations, support strategy, account management, service operations, or a similar area, including a background in leading strong frontline teams; experience leading other leaders or larger frontline organizations is preferred.
• You have succeeded in environments experiencing major change, especially where new tools, workflows, or operating models had to be introduced and adopted.
• You are a strategic thinker who can connect customer needs, operational design, and business outcomes, then turn vision into an actionable plan.
• You are comfortable working with AI-enabled processes and can help teams adopt new tools responsibly while applying human judgment where needed.
• You think in systems, can design operating mechanisms, review performance, and use data to guide priorities, accountability, and corrective action.
• You are an effective people leader who sets high standards, develops talent with intention, and brings clarity and momentum to ambiguous situations.
• You have the executive presence to influence senior internal stakeholders and partner leaders in complex or high-stakes settings.
• You operate strongly across functions and can move between frontline realities and broader enterprise priorities with ease.
• Experience in real estate, proptech, marketplace businesses, or performance-driven partner models is strongly preferred.

Success in This Role

Success here is not just about short-term targets. It means building a team and operating model that can grow with Zillow’s goals; delivering faster, clearer, and more effective partner support; helping the team know when to rely on AI and when to step in personally; and creating the data, routines, and systems needed to keep improving performance over time.

About Zillow

Zillow is rethinking how people move through the real estate journey and through their careers. As the most visited real estate platform in the United States, the company supports people buying, selling, financing, and renting with greater confidence and ease. The work spans technology, sales, operations, and design, all contributing to a company that is changing an industry and helping more people find home.

Zillow has been recognized as one of FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2025 and was included on the PEOPLE Companies That Care 2025 list, reflecting a commitment to an innovative, inclusive, and engaging workplace where employees can grow.

Zillow Group is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to an inclusive environment. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or veteran status. Applicants with disabilities or special needs may request accommodation through their recruiter. Qualified candidates with arrest or conviction records will be reviewed in line with applicable state and local laws.

Additional Legal Notice for Los Angeles County Applicants

For applicants in Los Angeles County, the job requires safe and cooperative work with employees, supervisors, and staff; adherence to standards of excellence under stressful conditions; respectful and effective communication to support excellent customer service; and compliance with federal, state, local, and company requirements. Criminal history may relate directly and adversely to some job duties, including those involving judgment, professionalism, stress management, trustworthiness, safety, policy compliance, and protection of business operations and reputation. Qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered under the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance.