Policy Escalation Lead, High Harm - USDS

Responsibilities

This role will sit within the USDS Policy Implementation team and support USDS. As the Team Lead, you are responsible for overseeing the strategic direction and execution of US Policy Escalations across Tik Tok U.S. Data Security. This pivotal role demands a leader who can not only envision and drive strategy but also adeptly manage projects independently and navigate through highly ambiguous spaces with agility.

You will need to cultivate a deep understanding of the platform and how it can be abused by actors to exploit vulnerable populations while championing freedom of expression for our users and ensuring policies protect users of all experiences and backgrounds. This will role will require a swift ability to make policy decisions in a fast-paced environment. You will work closely with a variety of internal partners including Regional Policy, Risk and Response, Product, and Legal Policy Operations to ensure that Tik Tok is able to detect, triage, and prevent safety incidents.

• Provide strategic leadership, management, and direction to a multifaceted team, fostering innovation and excellence to significantly reduce high-harm content and strengthen platform trust and safety at scale.
• Own program performance tracking and evaluation, implement strategies to meet and exceed organizational goals and objectives.
• Act as senior escalation lead and coverage for the USDS Policy Implementation team to swiftly respond to and mitigate the proliferation of high harm escalations.
• Interface with internal cross-functional teams including government relations and communications on time-sensitive topics and escalations to drive our risk containment strategy.
• Drive the strategic response to high-harm issue areas by staying at the forefront of US-based abuse trends; synthesize complex adversarial patterns into actionable insights that strengthen platform defenses.
• Provide policy implementation support for safety strategies including keywords, hashtags and search.
• Proactively identify and evaluate emerging policy risks to our platform and drive solutions to help mitigate them.
• Rely on data-driven assessments of high harm content to inform policy development.
• Analyze existing policies and procedures to identify gaps, inconsistencies, or conflicts.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders and industry experts to track evolving US and Global trends, transforming real-time insights into proactive enforcement strategies that protect the platform and its users.

• 5+ years of work experience in Trust & Safety, content policy, or brand safety roles or another relevant field with a focus on high harm issues including Violent Extremism, Integrity and Authenticity or Youth Safety.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and inspire a team of senior professionals, managing multiple projects and initiatives across diverse operational areas.
• Excellent leadership and interpersonal skills, with experience managing high-performing teams.
• Ability to work with multiple external partners to ensure our policy and procedure expectations are met.
• Demonstrated systematic thought process regarding policy and thorough operational experience.
• Background in operational excellence with a proven ability to structure policy and process-oriented milestones.
• Ability to thrive in ambiguous environments, identify trade-offs, and make decisions in important situations.

• Experience briefing executive leadership and demonstration of polished communication skills.
• Experience working in a start-up, or forming new teams in established companies.
• Your ability to work in a high tempo environment, adapt, respond to day-to-day challenges of the role.
• Your resilience and commitment to self-care to manage the emotional demands of the role.

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.

Tik Tok recognises that keeping our platform safe for the Tik Tok 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.

Tik Tok USDS Joint Venture LLC is…