Corporate Security Investigations & Protective Intelligence Manager

Whatnot Inc.; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 157,000 - 205,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Work From Home Support

Retirement 401k

Parental Leave

Job summary

Whatnot seeks a seasoned investigations professional to own and operate our corporate security program. You will build a case-management system, monitor threats, and coordinate with Trust & Risk, Legal, and People teams to protect the business.

You will manage vendors, use internal AI tools, and liaise with law enforcement when needed, while maintaining strict confidentiality and privacy standards. This role requires a hybrid in-office cadence in major hubs.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in corporate or government investigations and protective intelligence.
• Proven end-to-end investigations including workplace violence and insider risk.
• Experience building tooling with AI and internal AI systems.
• Familiarity with investigative and intelligence tools like Clear, OSINT, Ontic.
• Ability to determine escalation and engage law enforcement when appropriate.
• Strong privacy, data-handling, and confidentiality practices.
• Experience working with local and federal law enforcement agencies.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and manage Whatnot's investigations and case management system using internal AI tools.
• Monitor signals for threats and deliver concise intelligence products to stakeholders.
• Lead threat assessments and coordinate with Trust & Risk, Legal, and People teams.
• Oversee vendor onboarding, budgets, and tool usage policies.
• Collaborate on escalation criteria and incident response planning.
• Support events and high-profile activities with protective intelligence.

Skills

Investigations

Protective intelligence

Threat management

AI tooling

Law enforcement liaison

Privacy & data handling

Communication

Tools

Ontic

Clear

OSINT platforms

Claude AI

Job description

Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!

Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.

As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.

We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.

Role

• In this role, you will:
  • Build and run the Corporate Security investigations case management system, preferably using internal AI tools to ship quickly, and select and manage external investigative tools.
  • Conduct investigations in close partnership with Trust & Risk, People and Legal teams.
  • Serve as a member of the threat management team to determine when on-platform behavior, reports, or escalations signal a credible risk of in-person harm, and assist in threat assessment, mitigation, and response.
• You’ll sit within Whatnot’s Corporate Security team and work closely with Trust & Risk, Legal, People, CyberSecurity, and IT. You’ll be hands-on in the cases and the tools while also operating as the program owner.

What You’ll Do

Protective Intelligence & Law Enforcement Outreach Management

• Monitor open-source and platform signals for emerging threats, and deliver concise intelligence products to Corporate Security and business partners.
• In partnership with Trust & Risk and other members of the Threat Management team, determine when on-platform issues (harassing or threatening messages, escalating disputes, concerning behavior toward hosts, sellers, or buyers) could translate into in-person incidents, and collaborate on threat assessment and recommended response.
• Partner with Trust & Risk on escalation criteria and handoffs between platform enforcement and Corporate Security.
• Provide protective intelligence and threat assessments to support company events, executive protection, and high-profile business activities.
• Partner with Trust & Risk and Legal to map the landscape of law enforcement partners and playbooks for proactive law enforcement partnership.

Internal Investigations & Threat Management

• In partnership with the People and Legal teams, conduct internal security investigations.
• Support compliance with workplace violence prevention requirements, including SB 553 in California, in partnership with the Legal and People teams.
• Maintain rigorous evidence handling, documentation, and confidentiality standards.
• Establish processes for sharing investigative findings, threat assessments, and recommended security actions with appropriate internal stakeholders while maintaining confidentiality.

Case Management System (Build) & Investigative Tooling Management

• Design, build, and manage Whatnot’s investigations and case management system, a purpose-built alternative to platforms like Ontic, using internal AI tools to develop.
• Source, evaluate, and manage investigative and intelligence tools, such as Clear, TLO, or other public-records and OSINT platforms.
• Own vendor onboarding, budgets, contracts, and renewals. In partnership with the Cybersecurity and Legal teams, set permissible-use, privacy, and access standards so tools are used lawfully and consistently.

Location & Travel

This role will be based in one of the Whatnot hubs - NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles with a preference for candidates in New York City. The successful candidate must live within commuting distance of their hub location. Expected in-office cadence: ~2 days per week. This role will be expected to occasionally respond to urgent security incidents outside of normal work hours and will include periodic travel (~10%).

You

Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that embodying a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive goes a long way here.

We’re looking for someone who’s passionate about keeping people safe while enabling the business to thrive. You bring both a deep skillset and empathy to your work, thrive in a fast-moving environment, and lead with calm, informed confidence.

What You’ll Bring

• 7+ years of experience in corporate or government investigations and protective intelligence.
• Proven experience managing end-to-end investigations, including workplace violence, insider risk, and external threats.
• Experience building/vibe-coding purpose built tooling with AI (we use Claude most prominently at Whatnot).
• Deep familiarity with the investigative and intelligence tool landscape (for example Clear, OSINT and social media monitoring platforms, and case management platforms like Ontic), and the ability to articulate which tools are most valuable for this body of work and why.
• Sound judgment on when a concerning behavior warrants escalation, intervention, or law enforcement engagement.
• Strong understanding of permissible use, privacy, and data-handling requirements.
• Experience working with local and federal law enforcement agencies.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong discretion, sound ethics, and the ability to handle sensitive, confidential matters.

Bonus Points

• ASIS PCI (Professional Certified Investigator), ATAP Certified Threat Manager (CTM) or similar certification.
• Experience with trust and safety, marketplace, social, gaming, or live/real-time product environments, and with online-to-offline threat escalation.
• Experience supporting international investigations across multiple jurisdictions.
• Experience with workplace violence prevention compliance requirements.

Benefits

• Generous Holiday and Time off Policy
• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
• Work From Home Support
  • Home office setup allowance
  • Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
• Care benefits
  • Monthly allowance for wellness
  • Annual allowance towards Childcare
  • Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
  • All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).
• Parental Leave
  • 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

Please note: Whatnot will only contact you through official @whatnot.com email addresses. If you see an email impersonating a Whatnot recruiter, please disregard and report it as spam.

EOE

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.

Compensation Range: $157K - $205K