Device Safety & Risk Operations Specialist

Jobtailor; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Jobtailor is seeking a senior program leader to build and run an end-to-end safety and risk operating model for new consumer hardware. You will define incident taxonomies, escalation criteria, and response playbooks, coordinating across Product, Engineering, Legal and Privacy teams.

You will design required workflows, data access, monitoring, and automation, while standing up launch-readiness plans and post-launch reviews. A hands-on, practical executor is essential.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in device safety, product safety, consumer hardware operations, technical program management, or related field.
• Built a complex safety or risk program from plan through launch and scaled operation.
• Understand high-severity incidents, regulated workflows, sensitive customer information, and time-critical escalations.
• Translate constraints from product, engineering, legal, privacy, and policy into executable workflows.
• Fluent with data flows, telemetry, access controls, audit logs, case systems, automation.
• Use data to assess workflow health, identify patterns, and make risk-based decisions.
• Establish clear accountability across teams with overlapping responsibilities and different risk tolerances.
• Balance launch speed with safety controls, monitoring, rollback criteria, and long-term system development.
• Communicate clearly with operational, technical, legal, and executive audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end safety and risk operating model for new consumer hardware.
• Define incident taxonomies, severity levels, escalation criteria, and response pathways.
• Develop playbooks for product-safety incidents, escalations, advisories, and corrective actions.
• Design regulated and privacy-sensitive workflows with evidence requirements and auditability.
• Translate needs into tooling, data access, monitoring, and automation requirements.
• Establish ownership boundaries across Product, Engineering, Legal, Privacy, Policy, Support, and Quality.
• Build launch-readiness plans, tabletop exercises, and post-launch monitoring.
• Use telemetry and case outcomes to improve upstream products and systems.

Skills

Device safety

Product safety

Technical program management

Workflow design

Telemetry & data flows

Audit logs

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

• Build the end-to-end safety and risk operating model for new consumer hardware, from early requirements through launch and early-life operations.
• Define incident taxonomies, severity levels, decision rights, escalation criteria, response pathways, and closure standards.
• Develop operational playbooks for product-safety incidents, critical escalations, safety advisories, corrective actions, and other high-risk events.
• Design workflows for regulated and privacy-sensitive cases, including restricted handling, evidence requirements, auditability, and partner escalation.
• Translate safety and operational needs into requirements for tooling, case management, data access, monitoring, logging, and automation.
• Establish clear ownership boundaries across Product, Engineering, Legal, Privacy, Product Policy, Support, Product Quality, and other operational partners.
• Build launch-readiness plans, tabletop exercises, training, quality controls, reporting, and post-launch monitoring.
• Use operational data, customer signals, product telemetry, and case outcomes to identify patterns and improve upstream products and systems.
• Determine where AI and automation can improve triage, evidence assembly, consistency, and response while preserving appropriate human judgment.
• Stand up priority workflows, operate them through launch and early-life stabilization, and transition them into durable homes across USRO and partner teams.

Requirements

• Have 8+ years of relevant experience in device safety, product safety, consumer hardware operations, technical program management, or a related field.
• Have built a complex safety or risk program from an ambiguous starting point through launch and scaled operation.
• Understand the realities of handling high-severity incidents, regulated workflows, sensitive customer information, and time-critical escalations.
• Can translate product, engineering, legal, privacy, and policy constraints into workflows that operational teams can execute.
• Are technically fluent and can reason through data flows, telemetry, access controls, audit logs, case systems, automation, and failure modes.
• Use data to assess workflow health, identify emerging patterns, evaluate quality, and make risk-based decisions.
• Can establish clear accountability across teams with overlapping responsibilities and different risk tolerances.
• Know how to balance launch speed with safety controls, monitoring, rollback criteria, and longer-term system development.
• Communicate clearly with operational, technical, legal, and executive audiences when evidence is incomplete or tradeoffs are difficult.
• Are highly practical and willing to build the workflow, not only define the strategy.