About the role

As a Trust & Safety Lead, you will work closely with Runway’s legal, business, and technical teams to help define and implement the company’s Trust & Safety roadmap, building upon our existing programs and features as well as monitoring compliance with and enforcing current policies.

As a senior IC and subject-matter expert, you will closely monitor changes in the industry and policy landscape and provide real-time, practical advice to leadership and have the opportunity to shape our risk assessments, mitigation strategies, and overall vision and strategy for building trustworthy AI products for our customers. You must also be willing and able to work with sensitive content and situations that may be offensive, disturbing, or triggering.

This role will report to Runway’s General Counsel and we’re looking for candidates who are motivated by a high level of ownership with strong operational precision and sound business judgment.

What you’ll do

• Build out and manage the company’s Trust & Safety infrastructure, processes, and operations, including, but not limited to: moderation workflows; enforcement protocols; reporting mechanisms; model/model update release checklists; and user-facing guidance and communications relating to our Trust & Safety policies.
• Define principles and policies around system misuse, user safety, content moderation, and sensitive data handling based on cross-functional collaboration with, and input from, Product, Engineering, Research, Legal, and customer-facing teams.
• Collaborate with the Product team and other cross-functional stakeholders as needed on product development with safety at the forefront, including product features to prevent misuse and address safety issues.
• Provide guidance to the Support team on Trust & Safety-related questions that arise.
• Monitor industry developments, including through relationships with industry peers, to understand emerging best practices.
• Closely follow legal, policy, regulatory, and industry developments that may affect our Trust & Safety policies, advising stakeholders and developing recommendations accordingly.
• Serve as a global escalation point for emergency safety-related cases; recommending action plans for such emergency cases; and driving cross-functional resolution.
• Provide pragmatic advice and risk mitigation recommendations.

What you’ll need

• 5+ years of overall experience in Trust & Safety, with experience in a high-growth technology company preferred
• JD preferred, but not required
• Hands-on experience as a “doer" in building Trust & Safety programs and workflows
• In-depth knowledge of content moderation, legal compliance, and abuse protection practices and industry standards
• High technical aptitude for understanding complex technologies, tools, systems, and issues
• Superior communication abilities, with proven experience in cross-functional collaboration and consensus building, especially with technical, business, and legal teams
• Experience in high-stakes, high-pressure decision making, including crisis management and ownership
• Strong ability to navigate, and prioritize amidst, ambiguity, and to flex into different domains to bring clarity and execute
• Mindset to think creatively about the risks and benefits of new technologies, and think beyond past checklists and playbooks
• Exceptional analytical skills
• High EQ, including strong instincts for how to respectfully manage difficult conversations, situations, and topics

Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide.

There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range.

Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates.

Salary range: $170,000-$215,000