Product Vertical Lead, YouTube Social and Escalation Operations

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:

• Knowledge of the YouTube ecosystem, including products, policies, creator communities, and online cultural trends.
• Ability to develop and execute multi-channel communication plans balancing business objectives and social platform capabilities.
• Ability to translate complex policy or technical topics into digestible, engaging materials for broad external audiences.
• Ability to influence cross-functional partners without positional authority to align messaging and achieve strategic goals.
• Ability to manage brand crisis communications and serve as an on-call incident manager in fast-paced environments.
• Ability to lead complex projects and streamline inefficient operational workflows through robust problem-solving, operations, and metrics.

About the job

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.

You’ll find us on YouTube and Play Store, and YouTube’s official Product Help Communities. We have deep expertise in public community engagement, UGC programs, social care, social media crisis response, social intelligence, incident management, and operational excellence.

In this role, you lead the Social and Community strategy for your assigned YouTube product or policy areas. You will design and execute workflows and communications to support major product launches, proactive community engagement initiatives, and social support and escalation strategy. You will serve as an expert for how online communities will react to new products, content, and ideas, as well as elevate the main drivers of product related escalations.

You will represent the community internally, using data-driven insights to inform product development and content optimization. As a key cross-functional partner, you will also play a critical role in navigating urgent escalations and shaping our crisis response, ensuring that YouTube's voice remains trusted, empathetic, and consistent.

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 cutting-edge 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.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end social and community strategy for Go-to-Market (GTM) launches in assigned product areas, from planning and prioritization, to content development for multi-channel communications.
• Draft and publish high-impact external communications, including Forum Posts, Social Posts (@TeamYouTube), and Educational Campaigns, in close collaboration with public relations and marketing partners.
• Represent the user by systematically identifying, analyzing, and reporting on product launches, top community feedback themes, and support trends to inform product roadmaps.
• Increase UGC and peer-to-peer community connections by growing our YouTube Product Expert Program. Improve our 24x7 social support and escalation operations for by developing clear guidelines, training materials, and processes for our global teams.
• Serve as a key communications leader during large-scale escalations and incidents, collaborating with Engineering, Product, and Trust & Safety teams to drive external comms and resolution.