Safety Support Team Lead - Customer Support

TikTok USDS Joint Venture; Scottsdale (AZ); On-site; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

TikTok USDS Joint Venture seeks a Safety Support Team Lead to manage frontline specialists, drive performance, and ensure rapid, safe resolutions across safety inquiries and escalations.

The role focuses on coaching, maintaining high SLAs, and coordinating with cross-functional partners to improve processes and incident response in a fast-paced, high-volume environment.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in Customer Support, User Operations, or Trust & Safety.
• 2+ years of direct people management leading frontline teams.
• Proven track record of managing frontline performance against KPIs (CSAT, SLA, AHT, QA).

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of frontline Safety Support Specialists.
• Manage daily roster, shifts, queues, and around-the-clock coverage to meet SLAs.
• Own end-to-end operational metrics (CSAT, Reply Rate, AHT, SLA adherence, QA).
• Handle complex escalations with sound judgment and policy knowledge.
• Ensure SOPs and safety policies are followed; coordinate with QA/Training.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to optimize templates and workflows.
• Assist leadership during localized incidents or product rollouts to ensure readiness.

Skills

People leadership

Frontline team management

Operational KPIs

Critical thinking

Interpersonal skills

Coaching

Tools

Ticketing systems

Workforce Management

Job description

Responsibilities

About the Team As a Safety Support Team Lead, you will lead and empower a dedicated team of frontline Support Specialists responsible for delivering safe, high-quality, and user-centric support across the TikTok US ecosystem. Serving as the direct frontline operational lead, your team is on the frontlines of resolving user safety inquiries, account integrity issues, policy enforcement appeals, and critical safety incidents at scale.

In this role, you will be directly accountable for frontline operational excellence, daily performance metrics, and team coaching. You will act as the operational engine that transforms high-level support strategies into seamless, day-to-day execution-ensuring high SLA adherence, exceptional resolution quality, and driving continuous operational improvements across specific user safety scenarios.

Position Summary

We are looking for an operational, people-focused, and metrics-driven Safety Support Team Lead to directly manage a team of frontline Safety Support Specialists. You will be responsible for driving day-to-day operations, coaching specialists, handling high-stakes escalations, and meeting SLAs and quality standards.

The ideal candidate thrives in a high-volume, fast-paced environment, possesses strong critical thinking when handling high-priority safety cases, and is passionate about developing frontline talent while upholding platform trust and safety.

Key Responsibilities

Frontline Team Leadership & People Management

• Direct Team Management: Lead, mentor, and foster a high-performing team of frontline Safety Support Specialists. Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and career development coaching.
• Shift & Coverage Execution: Manage daily team roster, shift allocation, real-time queue management, and shrinkage to ensure robust around-the-clock coverage and SLA compliance across all assigned channels and queues.
• Culture & Resilience: Build a resilient, support-oriented, and inclusive team culture, recognizing the unique emotional and operational demands of handling complex user safety and account issues.

Operational Excellence & Scenario Metric Ownership

• Metric Accountability: Own and drive end-to-end operational metrics for your team and specific support scenarios, including Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Reply Rate, Average Handling Time (AHT), SLA Adherence, and Service Quality Scores.
• Escalation Handling: Act as the primary operational point of contact for complex, high-stakes, or time-critical safety escalations, applying sound judgment and deep policy knowledge to ensure accurate resolution.
• SOP & Quality Enforcement: Ensure frontline specialists strictly adhere to operational SOPs, safety policies, and compliance guidelines. Partner with QA and Training teams to identify skill gaps and deliver targeted refresher training.

Process Improvement & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Root-Cause Feedback: Analyze daily queue trends, contact drivers, and agent feedback to identify systemic workflow friction, SOP ambiguity, or tool glitches.
• Cross-Functional Synergy: Partner closely with internal Workflow & SOP, VoC Insight, and Quality/Training teams to continuously optimize support templates, knowledge base articles, and operational workflows.
• Incident Response Support: Assist operations leadership and global partners during localized safety incidents, policy updates, or new product feature rollouts to ensure frontline readiness.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years of progressive experience in Customer Support, User Operations, or Trust & Safety, with 2+ years of direct people management experience leading frontline teams/agents.
• Proven track record of managing frontline team performance against strict operational KPIs (CSAT, SLA, AHT, QA) in a high-volume, fast-paced environment.
• Strong critical thinking and decision-making skills, with experience managing complex, high-risk user escalations with discretion and sound judgment.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills with a passion for developing talent, delivering constructive feedback, and coaching team members to high performance.
• Ability to remain composed, adapt quickly to changing platform policies, and manage shifting operational priorities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in Trust & Safety, Content Moderation, Account Integrity, or High-Risk Customer Support in digital platform or social media industries.
• Experience managing teams operating in an around-the-clock shift environment.
• Familiarity with ticketing systems and workforce management (WFM) concepts.
• Experience collaborating with BPO partners, internal Standards teams, or cross-functional Product/Policy stakeholders.

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