BPO Vendor Manager, Trust and Safety
TikTok USDS Joint Venture
5 hours ago
Full-time
On-site
San Jose, California, United States
$88,000 - $198,445 USD yearly
Manager
Responsibilities
About the Role
As a Partner Manager for BPO Performance, you will be at the forefront of ensuring operational excellence and integrity across our outsourced Trust & Safety operations. You will own the performance relationship with our BPO partners, holding them accountable to the highest standards of quality, security, and service delivery. This role demands a unique blend of rigorous performance management, strategic relationship cultivation, and cross-functional leadership to protect the TikTok platform and its users. You will be the single point of accountability for your assigned partner sites, responsible for driving continuous improvement and mitigating operational risks in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment.
Core Responsibilities
Performance Management & Governance:
- Drive site performance through a robust governance framework, daily operational oversight, and executive-level business reviews (weekly, monthly, quarterly).
- Establish and enforce core KPIs, escalation protocols, and reporting cadences to ensure unwavering partner accountability.
- Conduct deep-dive performance analytics, audit performance trends, and validate vendor Root Cause Analyses (RCAs) to prevent systemic operational failures.
- Enforce strict vendor discipline for Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), ensuring milestones are met and outcomes are achieved within agreed-upon timelines.
Strategic Relationship Management:
- Own and cultivate a high-trust, transparent partnership with BPO leadership, rooted in mutual accountability and a focus on sustained performance.
- Serve as the primary subject matter expert for your partner sites, crisply articulating site performance, remediation plans, and strategic initiatives to an executive audience.
- Coordinate and lead BPO site visits to audit performance, compliance, and security, delivering comprehensive post-visit reports with clear, time-bound deliverables.
Operational & Financial Oversight:
- Govern all aspects of the BPO invoicing, including meticulous validation and approval of monthly invoices and ensuring adherence to headcount and capacity plans.
- Continuously evaluate volume forecasting precision against actual demand to optimize staffing models and maintain operational readiness.
- Track and enforce contractual SLAs, handle times, and core productivity metrics to drive operational efficiency and maximize value.
Risk, Audit & Compliance:
- Serve as the first line of defense in identifying and mitigating operational, compliance, and security risks within our partner network.
- Swiftly escalate and manage high-impact delivery breaches and conduct failures, partnering with internal risk management stakeholders to drive resolution and deliver comprehensive post-mortems.
Cross-Functional Synchronization:
- Act as the central communication hub between internal TikTok teams (Policy, Quality, Training, Engineering) and our BPO partners.
- Lead joint calibration sessions with quality teams to ensure consistent service delivery standards across all sites.
- Partner with the Moderation Standards team to ensure BPO trainers are certified and all new training requirements are seamlessly executed.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the quality assurance operations of partner content review teams and serve as a designated point of contact between TikTok crossfunctional stakeholders and external vendor teams.
- Ensure that Partners are on track to meet or exceed KPI targets.
- Establish performance glidepaths, creating calculated milestones to drive continuous success and maintain standards for vendors, monitoring site specific metrics and trends.
- Perform data analysis to uncover problematic error trends, develop collaborative improvement initiatives, and report findings.
- Identify improvement areas for external quality team performance and work closely with internal stakeholders and vendor leadership to prepare solutions.
- Perform as a functional bridge between external vendors, internal stakeholders, and the quality team
- Maintain expert understanding of TikTok’s policies, procedures, app features, and internal documents
- Own weekly calibration sessions with vendor partners to ensure consistent alignment of policy and process.
- Attend regular vendor delivered business reviews, track performance metrics, maintain organized records, and conduct conversations regarding recent trends.
- Work on AdHoc projects as requested by leadership and manage multiple responsibilities simultaneously.
- Travel expectation is 10-15% for this role
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- 3 years experience in Trust & Safety Operations Management & Leadership, Vendor Management, or equivalent industry experience
- Strong communication skills with the ability to pay close attention to detail, creating reports and maintaining documentation
- Strong oral and written communications and influencing skills, and are able to navigate a global organization, influence stakeholders and affect outcomes. You have the ability to gain trust and influence with limited direct authority.
- Able to work with minimal supervision, taking ownership of work and completing tasks in timely manner, while adapting rapidly to changing work environments, priorities and organizational needs
- Ability to identify gaps in existing processes/policies/procedures and efficiency gain through enhanced processes, policies and procedures
- Proficiency with data visualization tools that utilize query language (SQL, Tableau, etc)
- Advanced knowledge in Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, PowerPoint) Google Suite, (Sheets, Docs, Slides)
- Some travel between our Los Angeles and Mountain View offices
Preferred Qualifications
- 2+ years experience in a quality assurance management role
- Understanding of the broader landscape of new policy developments in media, tech, and the entertainment industries
- Proven experience successfully manipulating, processing, and extracting value from large and disconnected data sets.
- Experience in large scale operations working across or coordinating with multiple domains and business units.
Trust & Safety
Content that this role interacts with includes images, video, and text related to every-day life, but it can also include (but is not limited to) bullying; hate speech; child safety; depictions of harm to self and others, and harm to animals. Hence, it is possible that this role will be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis.
TikTok recognises that keeping our platform safe for the TikTok communities is no ordinary job which can be both rewarding and psychologically demanding and emotionally taxing for some. This is why we are sharing the potential hazards, risks and implications in this unique line of work from the start, so our candidates are well informed before joining.
We are committed to the wellbeing of all our employees and promise to provide comprehensive and evidence-based programs, to promote and support physical and mental wellbeing throughout each employee's journey with us. We believe that wellbeing is a relationship and that everyone has a part to play, so we work in collaboration and consultation with our employees and across our functions in order to ensure a truly person-centred, innovative and integrated approach.
About USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS Reasonable Accommodation
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $88000 - $198445 annually.
Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
About the Role
As a Partner Manager for BPO Performance, you will be at the forefront of ensuring operational excellence and integrity across our outsourced Trust & Safety operations. You will own the performance relationship with our BPO partners, holding them accountable to the highest standards of quality, security, and service delivery. This role demands a unique blend of rigorous performance management, strategic relationship cultivation, and cross-functional leadership to protect the TikTok platform and its users. You will be the single point of accountability for your assigned partner sites, responsible for driving continuous improvement and mitigating operational risks in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment.
Core Responsibilities
Performance Management & Governance:
- Drive site performance through a robust governance framework, daily operational oversight, and executive-level business reviews (weekly, monthly, quarterly).
- Establish and enforce core KPIs, escalation protocols, and reporting cadences to ensure unwavering partner accountability.
- Conduct deep-dive performance analytics, audit performance trends, and validate vendor Root Cause Analyses (RCAs) to prevent systemic operational failures.
- Enforce strict vendor discipline for Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), ensuring milestones are met and outcomes are achieved within agreed-upon timelines.
Strategic Relationship Management:
- Own and cultivate a high-trust, transparent partnership with BPO leadership, rooted in mutual accountability and a focus on sustained performance.
- Serve as the primary subject matter expert for your partner sites, crisply articulating site performance, remediation plans, and strategic initiatives to an executive audience.
- Coordinate and lead BPO site visits to audit performance, compliance, and security, delivering comprehensive post-visit reports with clear, time-bound deliverables.
Operational & Financial Oversight:
- Govern all aspects of the BPO invoicing, including meticulous validation and approval of monthly invoices and ensuring adherence to headcount and capacity plans.
- Continuously evaluate volume forecasting precision against actual demand to optimize staffing models and maintain operational readiness.
- Track and enforce contractual SLAs, handle times, and core productivity metrics to drive operational efficiency and maximize value.
Risk, Audit & Compliance:
- Serve as the first line of defense in identifying and mitigating operational, compliance, and security risks within our partner network.
- Swiftly escalate and manage high-impact delivery breaches and conduct failures, partnering with internal risk management stakeholders to drive resolution and deliver comprehensive post-mortems.
Cross-Functional Synchronization:
- Act as the central communication hub between internal TikTok teams (Policy, Quality, Training, Engineering) and our BPO partners.
- Lead joint calibration sessions with quality teams to ensure consistent service delivery standards across all sites.
- Partner with the Moderation Standards team to ensure BPO trainers are certified and all new training requirements are seamlessly executed.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the quality assurance operations of partner content review teams and serve as a designated point of contact between TikTok crossfunctional stakeholders and external vendor teams.
- Ensure that Partners are on track to meet or exceed KPI targets.
- Establish performance glidepaths, creating calculated milestones to drive continuous success and maintain standards for vendors, monitoring site specific metrics and trends.
- Perform data analysis to uncover problematic error trends, develop collaborative improvement initiatives, and report findings.
- Identify improvement areas for external quality team performance and work closely with internal stakeholders and vendor leadership to prepare solutions.
- Perform as a functional bridge between external vendors, internal stakeholders, and the quality team
- Maintain expert understanding of TikTok’s policies, procedures, app features, and internal documents
- Own weekly calibration sessions with vendor partners to ensure consistent alignment of policy and process.
- Attend regular vendor delivered business reviews, track performance metrics, maintain organized records, and conduct conversations regarding recent trends.
- Work on AdHoc projects as requested by leadership and manage multiple responsibilities simultaneously.
- Travel expectation is 10-15% for this role
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- 3 years experience in Trust & Safety Operations Management & Leadership, Vendor Management, or equivalent industry experience
- Strong communication skills with the ability to pay close attention to detail, creating reports and maintaining documentation
- Strong oral and written communications and influencing skills, and are able to navigate a global organization, influence stakeholders and affect outcomes. You have the ability to gain trust and influence with limited direct authority.
- Able to work with minimal supervision, taking ownership of work and completing tasks in timely manner, while adapting rapidly to changing work environments, priorities and organizational needs
- Ability to identify gaps in existing processes/policies/procedures and efficiency gain through enhanced processes, policies and procedures
- Proficiency with data visualization tools that utilize query language (SQL, Tableau, etc)
- Advanced knowledge in Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, PowerPoint) Google Suite, (Sheets, Docs, Slides)
- Some travel between our Los Angeles and Mountain View offices
Preferred Qualifications
- 2+ years experience in a quality assurance management role
- Understanding of the broader landscape of new policy developments in media, tech, and the entertainment industries
- Proven experience successfully manipulating, processing, and extracting value from large and disconnected data sets.
- Experience in large scale operations working across or coordinating with multiple domains and business units.
Trust & Safety
Content that this role interacts with includes images, video, and text related to every-day life, but it can also include (but is not limited to) bullying; hate speech; child safety; depictions of harm to self and others, and harm to animals. Hence, it is possible that this role will be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis.
TikTok recognises that keeping our platform safe for the TikTok communities is no ordinary job which can be both rewarding and psychologically demanding and emotionally taxing for some. This is why we are sharing the potential hazards, risks and implications in this unique line of work from the start, so our candidates are well informed before joining.
We are committed to the wellbeing of all our employees and promise to provide comprehensive and evidence-based programs, to promote and support physical and mental wellbeing throughout each employee's journey with us. We believe that wellbeing is a relationship and that everyone has a part to play, so we work in collaboration and consultation with our employees and across our functions in order to ensure a truly person-centred, innovative and integrated approach.
About USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS Reasonable Accommodation
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually)
The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $88000 - $198445 annually.
Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.