Director of Engineering, Trust & Safety
Apexcare Talent Solutions
Washington St, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USAJob Overview
We are seeking an experienced and visionary Director of Engineering, Trust & Safety to lead, scale, and evolve the technical infrastructure, platforms, and algorithms that safeguard our global ecosystem. In this high-impact executive role, you will be responsible for defining the technical strategy to combat online fraud, abuse, account takeover, misinformation, harassment, and illegal content. You will lead cross-functional engineering, machine learning, and data science teams to build real-time detection systems and automated enforcement platforms while preserving a seamless experience for legitimate users.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership & Platform Architecture
- Define and drive the multi-year engineering roadmap for Trust & Safety, Abuse Prevention, Fraud Engineering, and Content Moderation platforms.
- Architect scalable, low-latency, real-time risk assessment engines, machine learning pipelines, and automated decisioning systems capable of evaluating millions of daily events.
- Establish metrics and operational indicators (e.g., false positive/negative rates, detection precision/recall, system latency, and enforcement speed) to track system efficacy and user safety.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Governance
- Partner closely with Legal, Policy, Product Management, Security, and Customer Support leadership to translate emerging risks and legal regulations into robust technical solutions.
- Lead engineering response strategies for critical safety incidents, emerging threat vectors, and policy compliance mandates (e.g., DSA, COPPA, GDPR).
- Drive the design of secure internal tools, review dashboards, and workflow automation for human moderation operations.
Team Building & Organizational Excellence
- Recruit, develop, and retain a high-performing, multi-tiered engineering organization composed of engineering managers, principal engineers, data scientists, and ML specialists.
- Cultivate a culture of technical rigor, operational excellence, rapid incident mitigation, and ethical AI development.
- Manage organizational headcount, budget allocation, vendor partnerships, and third-party safety tool integrations.
Required Skills & Qualifications
Technical Skills & Strategic Expertise
- Scalable Systems & ML Architecture: Deep technical understanding of high-throughput distributed systems, real-time streaming architectures (e.g., Kafka, Flink), and machine learning/AI detection models (NLP, computer vision, graph neural networks).
- Trust & Safety Domain Knowledge: Extensive expertise in threat modeling against online abuse patterns (spammers, fraudsters, bad actors, automated bots, and coordinated platform manipulation).
- Data & Analytics: Strong background in large-scale data processing, behavioral analytics, and predictive modeling for anomaly detection.
Leadership & Executive Presence
- Proven experience managing large, multi-disciplinary engineering teams through multiple layers of management (managers of managers).
- Exceptional communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical trade-offs, risk postures, and safety investments to C-suite executives and board members.
- Calm, decisive leadership under pressure during high-stakes security incidents or crisis situations.
Preferred Qualifications
- Education: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Data Science, or a related quantitative field.
- Experience: 10+ years in software engineering, with 5+ years in engineering leadership roles specifically focused on Trust & Safety, Risk & Fraud, Security, or Content Moderation at scale.
- Experience integrating generative AI safety guardrails, LLM moderation frameworks, and privacy-preserving machine learning techniques.
Benefits & Compensation
- Salary Range: $220,000 – $285,000 annually (commensurate with experience) + executive equity package & performance bonus.
- Comprehensive health, vision, and dental insurance plans.
- Executive 401(k) retirement plan with enhanced company match.
- Flexible paid time off (PTO) and paid executive sabbatical/leave options.
- Dedicated executive coaching, professional development, and wellness stipends.