Trust and Safety Lead

About Tandem
Tandem is the leading global language learning community, where more than 30 million members from over 200 countries practice languages together. The concept of learning from one another is not only at the core of the Tandem community — it's also at the heart of how we work. This shared connection through learning helps us grow together and enhance the language journeys of our members.

We're based in Berlin and backed by top European investors. Our team is highly international and united by a shared passion for languages, technology, and culture. Together, we're on a mission to build a product that not only teaches new skills but also fosters meaningful cross-cultural conversations.

About The Role
We're looking for a Trust and Safety Lead to join our Berlin team on an 11-month fixed-term contract as parental leave cover. You'll collaborate with engineers, product managers, and designers to make Tandem safer and more welcoming through better features, clear policies, smooth community operations and customer support. You'll lead the Community Manager and a distributed team of moderators, working closely with leadership and reporting directly to the CEO.

This is both a strategic and hands-on role — ideal for someone who thrives in dynamic environments, enjoys solving complex safety challenges, and is passionate about building online communities where people can connect meaningfully.

Your role will be to:

• Enhance safety tooling: Collaborate with engineers to iterate on existing member-facing and internal safety features and moderation tools, and identify, prioritize, and deliver new capabilities that support Tandem's Trust & Safety goals.
• Collaborate cross-functionally: Partner with Product and Engineering, to ensure safety considerations are embedded into product and operational decisions.
• Drive data-informed decisions: Analyze in-app data and behavioral patterns to detect risks, guide priorities and evaluate the safety interventions.
• Own policy: Develop and evolve community guidelines, enforcement frameworks, and escalation policies tailored to Tandem's global audience.
• Shape operations strategy: Partner with the Community Manager to define and execute a community operations strategy that ensures member safety and high-quality customer support.
• Lead and mentor: Manage and support the Community Manager and a global team of moderators, fostering an empathetic, inclusive, and performance-driven culture.
• Handle escalations: Own responses to critical or sensitive safety incidents and business-impacting cases.
• Be the first point of contact for data privacy questions and work together with the external data protection officer.
• Stay ahead of emerging risks and regulation: Monitor trends in online regulation, online harm, scams, and abuse across the social and learning industries.

You are the right fit for the role if you:

• Are passionate about languages and their power to connect cultures.
• Have 2+ years of experience managing direct reports.
• Bring experience in trust and safety, risk operations, policy development, or community management for large online communities (e.g. dating, social, or gaming apps).
• Are comfortable wearing multiple hats — from developing policy to diving into data or handling escalations.
• Are a self-starter who can manage complex projects end-to-end and collaborate across diverse teams.
• Have strong analytical skills and are comfortable working with data — defining metrics, interpreting dashboards, and using insights to drive action.
• Thrive in a fast-moving environment with evolving challenges and priorities.
• Possess excellent English communication and writing skills.

What Makes You Stand Out

• You're a team player who collaborates effectively with Engineering, Product, Design, and Marketing.
• You're a natural leader — whether through formal management, mentoring others, or driving initiatives.
• You have experience in community management or customer care.

The Benefits
Passion for languages:

We're a team of 30 people speaking 20 languages fluently between us. For those wanting to improve their German (or Denglisch), you can join one of our German classes.

Take a deep dive:

As a Tandem team member, we'll give you a budget for up to 6 "Deep Dive Days" per year. Pick a topic you've always wanted to explore for your professional development that has never made it out of your backlog. Then book a cabin in the woods or whatever matches your individual learning style.

Teams who train together, stay together:

We offer Urban Sports Club gym memberships to boost our team's physical and mental health. If you prefer, we can contribute to your monthly public transport ticket instead.

It takes a team to Tandem:

Bonding with our teammates outside of our normal work routine is important to us. We organize regular team events: from day trips to monthly lunches, summer BBQs, and movie nights.

Balance matters:

Life isn't just about work. We know when to snooze Slack notifications, recharge our batteries, and take time out for our personal hobbies. As home office has become the new normal for some of us, it's even more important to be able to switch off from work and relax.

Modern family:

As part of our family-friendly company philosophy, we embrace flexible working hours, welcome families to our events, and love for our kids to visit the office and get a taste of life at Tandem.

Hybrid by design:

We're all about embracing a flexible, modern way of working. That's why we focus on a hybrid approach—balancing time between our vibrant Berlin-Mitte office and the comfort of your home. It's the best of both worlds, and we'll support you in creating the perfect setup for this dynamic way of working.

About Us
Tandem is the leading global language learning app, where 30 million members in over 200 countries practice languages together. The concept of learning from each other is not only an integral part of the Tandem community but is also at the heart of our everyday lives at Tandem. This shared connection through learning helps us to grow and enhances the language journeys of our members.

We are based in Berlin and are backed by top European investors. We are highly international and driven by a shared passion for languages, technology, and culture. Together, we are on a mission to build a product that not only teaches a new skill but also encourages meaningful cross-cultural conversations.