Child Safety Team Lead, EMEA - Trust & Safety

TikTok; Dublin; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok’s Global Child Safety Team in Dublin, Ireland, seeks an experienced Child Safety Operations Lead to manage a global team focused on the timely detection and removal of content involving child endangerment. You will coordinate with Legal, Policy, and law enforcement to protect users and maintain a safe platform.

The role requires strong leadership, process design, and a commitment to safeguarding children in a high-sensitivity environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in operations management with cross-functional work and at least 2 years in leadership of an Investigative or Trust & Safety team.
• Experience reviewing sensitive content involving minors and escalation management.
• Ability to drive collaboration across multiple stakeholders and manage complex projects.

Responsibilities

• Lead a team of Child Safety Operations Specialists and drive daily operational effectiveness.
• Evaluate risk, threats, and user safety in time-critical escalations.
• Coordinate with Product, Policy, Legal and external partners, including law enforcement.
• Develop and refine processes, documentation, and workflows for policy enforcement.
• Manage multiple interdependent projects and communicate progress to stakeholders.

Skills

Operations management

Cross-functional collaboration

Leadership

Trust & Safety

Crisis management

Risk assessment

Analytical thinking

Tools

Open source investigation

Analytical tools

Job description

Responsibilities

TikTok's Global Child Safety Team (CST) serves as subject matter experts on the assessment and reporting of suspected child sexual exploitation happening on platform. Committed to keeping TikTok a safe and creative space for users of all ages, CST operates in a follow-the-sun model, providing coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, reviewing incoming incidents and when appropriate, reporting those incidents to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's (NCMEC) CyberTipline. From there, these reports are forwarded on to global law enforcement for review and enforcement.

About the role

As a Child Safety Operations Lead within the Trust & Safety Team, you’ll be part of a global team that ensures the timely detection and removal of content across the broad spectrum of online child endangerment, such as child sexual abuse and exploitation. Through close partnerships with Legal, Policy, and Product & Process teams, you will manage global time-sensitive escalations, and child sexual exploitation and abuse incidents to protect our online community.

You will also work closely with internal teams to create and streamline business and operational processes, develop detailed documentation and process diagrams, and increase our overall operational efficiency to ensure our products are free of any violative content.

The team is seeking a candidate with a strong work ethic, excellent judgment, exceptional partnering skills and a passion for protecting children.

Note: This position will include reviewing content and writing policies for some materials that may be offensive or sensitive to some people.

What will I be doing?

• You’ll lead a team of Child Safety Operations Specialists, ensure the team's daily operational effectiveness, set goals for the team, and be responsible for team members' professional development.
• Demonstrate operational excellence on a team that evaluates risk, threats, and user safety in time-critical escalations.
• Lead in executing instant decision-making while analyzing a variety of factors that include imminence of danger, sensitivities, and graphic content and coordinate with a number of internal and external partners including law enforcement in an attempt to ensure user's safety.
• Be aware of and willing to operate in a work environment with sensitive content that includes child sexual abuse and exploitation, and other content that may be considered offensive or disturbing.
• You’ll lead escalations or urgent law enforcement requests, liaising with Product, Policy, Communications, and Legal teams whenever necessary.
• You’ll identify problems and issues across organizations and create programs and processes to solve them proactively. Establish regular reporting to keep stakeholders up to date on progress, findings, and recommendations.
• You’ll manage multiple interdependent projects of moderate to high complexity and scope. Work cross-functionally to ensure coordination and alignment on objectives and key results.
• You’ll enhance our operational workflows via process improvements and the identification of automation opportunities. Drive innovation regarding processes and best practices for implementing policies.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• You have 5+ years of experience in operations management, relationship building, and working across cross-functional teams and at least 2 years of experience in leadership and management of an Investigative or Trust and Safety team.
• You have experience reviewing or being exposed to sensitive and potentially harmful content involving minors, including child sexual abuse and exploitation content, as part of removal flows calibrations and escalations management.
• You have experience managing projects from beginning to end and ability to drive collaboration across multiple stakeholders.
• You demonstrate good analytical, risk assessment skills, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Proven ability to lead and multi-task, responding quickly to changing situations in complex environments without compromising quality.
• Passionate about protecting children, and experience working on Trust & Safety issues or similar related field of work and types of online abuse.
• Availability to work on weekends on a rotational basis.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with leading in Crisis Management, Government Agencies or Law Enforcement.
• Knowledge of child safety policies and/or legislation.
• Experience with social media, analytical tools, and open source investigation.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills and ability to adapt communication style to suit different stakeholders, like cross-functional teams and law enforcement partners, and work successfully in cross-functional teams.

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-centered, innovative and integrated approach.

About TikTok

TikTok is the leading destination for short-form mobile video. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. TikTok's global headquarters are in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we also have offices in New York City, London, Dublin, Paris, Berlin, Dubai, Jakarta, Seoul, and Tokyo.

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.