Policy Vertical Lead, Social and Escalation Operations, YouTube

YouTube’s Social, Community and Escalation Operations team works 24/7 at the forefront of online engagement, managing both public conversations and sensitive user interactions. We are the brand's voice on social and community channels, actively shaping public discourse, fostering community growth, and scaling support. Simultaneously, we protect brand reputation and user safety through direct outreach and expert escalation management for sensitive and security-related issues.

As the Policy Vertical Lead for Social and Escalation Operations, you'll be on the front lines of how YouTube shapes and protects our brand reputation 24/7. In this role, you will lead YouTube’s social operations and escalation management strategy for the policy vertical, covering trust and safety, business generation, and other responsibility enforcement efforts. With your written communication skills, and a bias toward action, you will ensure rapid problem-solving for policy escalations. You will be directly responsible for building and maintaining operational excellence (e.g., workflow design, knowledge management, communication materials, training efforts), and advocating social, community, and escalation insights. You are expected to be the authority on how users will react to new policies and work with cross-functional teams to improve external communications, user journeys, and escalation experiences. As a strategic cross-functional partner, you will play a critical role in preempting and resolving urgent escalations, while shaping our 24x7 global crisis response strategy.

At YouTube, we believe that everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share, and build community through our stories. We work together to give everyone the power to share their story, explore what they love, and connect with one another in the process. Working at the intersection of technology and boundless creativity, we move at the speed of culture with a shared goal to show people the world. We explore new ideas, solve real problems, and have fun — and we do it all together.
Individual pay is determined by factors including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

US: $114000 - $163000 (USD) + 15% bonus target + equity + benefits

Learn more about benefits at Google (https://www.google.com/about/careers/applications/benefits/).

Minimum qualifications:

- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.

- 5 years of experience in trust and safety, community operations, social/user support escalations, or a related front-line operations role at a consumer or developer platform.

Preferred qualifications:

- Proven experience in crisis management, brand communications, and serving as a working incident manager.

- Deep understanding of YouTube’s products, policies, creator communities, and brand risk trends.

- Ability to streamline inefficient workflows and translate broad requirements into actionable plans.

- Exceptional communication skills to translate complex topics and influence cross-functional partners.

- Strong pattern-detection using social analytics tools to troubleshoot policies and measure impact.

- Strong bias toward action, prioritizing critically and deciding comfortably within ambiguous landscapes.

- Build deep expertise in YouTube’s guidelines, business generation, and responsibility policies, focusing on enforcement launches and workflows.

- Design, manage, and optimize 24/7 social support and escalation workflows, including knowledge management, communication materials, and design documents.

- Identify operational knowledge gaps and build adaptable training resources to strengthen the team's trust and safety acumen. Lead high-priority incident response for critical policy escalations, guiding managers, advising on external communication, and driving cross-functional resolutions.

- Drive cross-functional alignment for trust and safety, security, legal, and governance leaders during fast-moving crises. Analyze trends to present to executives, synthesizing escalation patterns, social feedback, and bugs into policy insight reports.

- Ensure global regulatory compliance and operational readiness for key mandates (e.g., GDPR) across policy and business generation products.