Barback

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.