Trust and Safety Content Moderation Team Lead
TikTok USDS Joint Venture
1 hour ago
Full-time
On-site
Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
Manager
Responsibilities
As a Trust and Safety Incubation Team Lead, you are responsible for leading a specialized team of agents dedicated to piloting, testing, and refining new content moderation workflows and policies. Your team will be the first to explore new problems, experiment with novel solutions, and create the playbooks that will define the future of safety at TikTok.
You will still be on the front lines, handling critical and complex content, but your primary goal will be to extract insights, identify failure points, and provide structured feedback to improve the process itself.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of agents in a dynamic, fast-paced incubation and moderation environment.
- Design and manage experiments to test new moderation tools, review queues, and policy enforcement hypotheses.
- Establish and monitor key success metrics for incubation and moderation projects, focusing on learning velocity, feedback quality, and the potential for scalability.
- Create detailed playbooks and documentation for successful workflows, preparing them for a smooth transition to the broader, scaled operations teams (including BPO partners).
- Act as the central feedback hub between your front-line team and the Policy, Product, and Engineering teams during the development of new tools and guidelines.
- Ensure all assigned experiments and tasks are executed with a high degree of analytical rigor.
- Conduct weekly reviews for management on project progress, key learnings, and data-driven recommendations.
Leadership
- Foster a culture of experimentation and psychological safety, where the team is empowered to test new ideas and where "fast failures" are treated as valuable learning opportunities.
- Excel at leading change management, guiding your team through frequent pivots and changes in priority as new projects are scoped and tested.
- Lead with empathy, actively promoting team members' well-being and resilience in an environment that is inherently ambiguous and demanding.
- Address performance, with a focus on coaching for adaptability, critical thinking, and quality of feedback.
- Willingness to be hands-on with content moderation tasks to deeply understand the challenges and opportunities in new workflows.
Policy and Process Expertise
- Develop a deep subject matter expertise in the intent and edge cases of TikTok's Community Guidelines.
- Use your team's unique vantage point to challenge existing policies, identifying gaps and areas for improvement.
- Serve as a critical, data-driven link between the front-line reality and the strategic direction of the global Policy and Trust & Safety teams.
Escalation & Insight Management
- Review, investigate, and process escalations that arise from new workflows, with a primary focus on using them as case studies to harden the new process.
- Provide clear, concise summaries to cross-functional partners about learnings from escalations and ongoing experiments.
- Deal with high-stakes situations by focusing on root-cause analysis rather than just immediate resolution.
Data-Driven Decision Making
- Utilize data and internal tools to analyze trends and share insights that support the case for or against a new process.
- Define new metrics and create measurement frameworks to evaluate the success and impact of experimental workflows.
- Partner with data analysts to design tests and interpret results, providing precise, data-backed recommendations.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Strategic and creative problem-solver with strong analytical skills.
- Bachelor's degree or a combination of 3+ years of experience in one or more of the following: Trust & Safety, Operations, Program Management, or a leadership role in a technical/product environment.
- Proven ability to lead high-performing teams, especially through change and ambiguity.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to articulate complex, evolving ideas to different audiences.
Preferred Qualifications
- Direct experience in process design, program management, or an operational role focused on continuous improvement or experimentation.
- Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments and make grounded decisions with incomplete data.
- Highly organized, with experience creating project plans, managing timelines, and prioritizing multiple functions and tasks.
- Experience with basic experimental design (e.g., A/B testing) and data analysis is a strong plus.
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
As a Trust and Safety Incubation Team Lead, you are responsible for leading a specialized team of agents dedicated to piloting, testing, and refining new content moderation workflows and policies. Your team will be the first to explore new problems, experiment with novel solutions, and create the playbooks that will define the future of safety at TikTok.
You will still be on the front lines, handling critical and complex content, but your primary goal will be to extract insights, identify failure points, and provide structured feedback to improve the process itself.
Primary Responsibilities:
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of agents in a dynamic, fast-paced incubation and moderation environment.
- Design and manage experiments to test new moderation tools, review queues, and policy enforcement hypotheses.
- Establish and monitor key success metrics for incubation and moderation projects, focusing on learning velocity, feedback quality, and the potential for scalability.
- Create detailed playbooks and documentation for successful workflows, preparing them for a smooth transition to the broader, scaled operations teams (including BPO partners).
- Act as the central feedback hub between your front-line team and the Policy, Product, and Engineering teams during the development of new tools and guidelines.
- Ensure all assigned experiments and tasks are executed with a high degree of analytical rigor.
- Conduct weekly reviews for management on project progress, key learnings, and data-driven recommendations.
Leadership
- Foster a culture of experimentation and psychological safety, where the team is empowered to test new ideas and where "fast failures" are treated as valuable learning opportunities.
- Excel at leading change management, guiding your team through frequent pivots and changes in priority as new projects are scoped and tested.
- Lead with empathy, actively promoting team members' well-being and resilience in an environment that is inherently ambiguous and demanding.
- Address performance, with a focus on coaching for adaptability, critical thinking, and quality of feedback.
- Willingness to be hands-on with content moderation tasks to deeply understand the challenges and opportunities in new workflows.
Policy and Process Expertise
- Develop a deep subject matter expertise in the intent and edge cases of TikTok's Community Guidelines.
- Use your team's unique vantage point to challenge existing policies, identifying gaps and areas for improvement.
- Serve as a critical, data-driven link between the front-line reality and the strategic direction of the global Policy and Trust & Safety teams.
Escalation & Insight Management
- Review, investigate, and process escalations that arise from new workflows, with a primary focus on using them as case studies to harden the new process.
- Provide clear, concise summaries to cross-functional partners about learnings from escalations and ongoing experiments.
- Deal with high-stakes situations by focusing on root-cause analysis rather than just immediate resolution.
Data-Driven Decision Making
- Utilize data and internal tools to analyze trends and share insights that support the case for or against a new process.
- Define new metrics and create measurement frameworks to evaluate the success and impact of experimental workflows.
- Partner with data analysts to design tests and interpret results, providing precise, data-backed recommendations.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Strategic and creative problem-solver with strong analytical skills.
- Bachelor's degree or a combination of 3+ years of experience in one or more of the following: Trust & Safety, Operations, Program Management, or a leadership role in a technical/product environment.
- Proven ability to lead high-performing teams, especially through change and ambiguity.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to articulate complex, evolving ideas to different audiences.
Preferred Qualifications
- Direct experience in process design, program management, or an operational role focused on continuous improvement or experimentation.
- Demonstrated ability to thrive in fast-paced, ambiguous environments and make grounded decisions with incomplete data.
- Highly organized, with experience creating project plans, managing timelines, and prioritizing multiple functions and tasks.
- Experience with basic experimental design (e.g., A/B testing) and data analysis is a strong plus.
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