Policy Manager, Search - Trust and Safety

About the role

As a Policy Manager in Search Policy within our Trust & Safety team, you will collaborate with product managers, data scientists, user researchers, operations, legal, and other stakeholders to develop policies and safety strategies for Search and Search product features. This role is pivotal in shaping TikTok’s safety and editorial policies for a rapidly expanding suite of Search products, ensuring they are defensible, clear, and consistently applied. You will conduct risk assessments, develop policies, and establish transparency requirements for new and emerging Search features. Partnering closely with product, enforcement, legal, and business teams, you will provide thought leadership on complex, cross-cutting issues. This role is both strategic and hands-on, requiring the ability to manage immediate priorities and long-term frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Identify and anticipate product and content safety risks to support new launches of Search policies, products, and features. Develop solutions to mitigate risks by optimizing policy iteration and implementation procedures, ensuring a safe content ecosystem for users.
• Support the safe and responsible development and go-to-market of Search features that aid search and discovery on TikTok by conducting pre-launch impact assessments to identify and mitigate potential real-world product harms.
• Author and maintain policies governing search indexing, ranking, and AI features (e.g., AI Overviews, Snippets).
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners and internal experts to understand emerging trends or risks. Partner with product managers and ML engineers to integrate policy rules directly into ranking algorithms and automated moderation models.
• Proactively address policy gaps driven by Generative AI, LLMs, and evolving user query behaviors.
• Design benchmarks and evaluation suites to measure policy enforcement accuracy, false positives, and algorithmic bias.
• Serve as the final policy authority for high-stakes, real-time search escalations during breaking news and global crises.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in product policy, trust and safety, legal tech, regulatory compliance, or content moderation strategy within a technology company.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate the tech product development lifecycle, interpret Product Requirement Documents (PRDs), and translate complex policy concepts into user-centric product requirements and roadmap deliverables.
• Experience drafting or enforcing policies specifically targeting Large Language Models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or multimodal search systems.
• Proven track record of evaluating complex, highly ambiguous trade-offs between free expression, user safety, and product quality.
• Demonstrated ability to lead complex, cross-functional technical initiatives without formal authority over team members.
• Exceptional communication skills, with extensive experience drafting formal policy documents and presenting to executives.
• Ability to independently analyze enforcement data and policy impact metrics.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep understanding of search engine architecture, information retrieval systems, content ranking principles, or generative AI models.
• Familiarity with global internet governance frameworks, freedom of speech laws, and international human rights standards.

Work Environment

Trust & Safety content this role interacts with includes images, video, and text related to everyday life, but may also involve exposure to harmful content such as bullying, hate speech, child safety issues, depictions of harm to self and others, and harm to animals. This role may be exposed to such content on a daily basis. TikTok acknowledges that this work can be both rewarding and psychologically demanding. We are committed to supporting employee wellbeing through comprehensive, evidence-based programs and a person-centered approach.

About TikTok

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

Why Join Us

At TikTok, we strive to inspire creativity and foster an inclusive environment where diverse voices are celebrated. Our innovative product helps people express themselves, discover, and connect. We embrace curiosity, humility, and a desire to make an impact. Challenges are seen as opportunities to learn and innovate, and we foster an "Always Day 1" mindset to achieve meaningful breakthroughs for our users and company.

Pay

The base salary range for this position is $121,600 - $272,000 annually. Compensation may vary based on qualifications, skills, experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the total package, which may include additional discretionary bonuses, incentives, and restricted stock units. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance; a 401(k) savings plan with company match; paid parental leave; short-term and long-term disability coverage; life insurance; wellbeing benefits; 10 paid holidays per year; 10 paid sick days per year; and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).

Schedule

• 10 paid holidays per year.
• 10 paid sick days per year.
• 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire, with accruals increasing by tenure).