Trust & Safety Manager, Critical Response

Overview

Instacart’s Critical Response Team (CRT) is instrumental in managing some of the most sensitive and urgent situations on our platform. As the Critical Response Manager, you will lead a team of specialists and associates responsible for various workflows covering interpersonal misconduct, injuries, risk intelligence monitoring, and real-time public safety events that have potential impact on the platform.

This is a high-visibility leadership role for someone who’s passionate about platform safety, thrives in complex and fast-moving environments, can build strong team culture under pressure, and brings both operational rigor and long-term strategic vision to their work. You will have the opportunity to work on safety problems that genuinely matter - your team’s decisions directly protect shoppers, customers, and retail partners. You will also lead a company’s investment in AI-augmented safety operations to shape how those tools evolve.

About the role

• Define and execute the long-term roadmap for the Critical Response team, including tooling upgrades, program gap remediation and AI integrations.
• Lead continued development of current workflows and safety programs to improve case process accuracy and reduce operational redundancy.
• Partner with Customer Experience, Trust & Safety leadership, Legal and Product teams to build more effective escalation and safety frameworks for the company to reduce risks.
• Ensure institutional knowledge is documented and scalable across all workflows.
• Audit and streamline existing workflows to reduce administrative burden and expand capacity for strategic, proactive work.
• Implement a clear framework for team’s operation capacity while balancing reactive case-handling and dedicated project deliveries
• Be able to use and interpret data to surface operational insights that drive process improvements and better safety outcomes.
• Mentoring the team. Build a high-trust, high-engagement team culture. Establish clear career paths and growth opportunities for all members in the team.
• Ensuring all team members have clear ownership, development opportunities, and a sense of purpose.
• Owns team performance across urgent and routine Salesforce cases and safety alert systems.
• Ensure operational coverage; proactively manage scheduling, escalations, and coverage gaps.
• Serves as one of the primary escalation points for critical incidents

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in an ever-changing landscape, enjoys turning complexity into clarity, and is excited about driving strategic improvements at scale.

About You

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in Trust & Safety, crisis response, or a related operations function.
• 5+ years of background in policy development or risk analytics
• 3+ years of directly engaging with regulatory compliance and law enforcement workflows.
• 3+ years of people management experience, ideally in a high-stakes operational environment.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi-workflow operations with strict SLA requirements.
• Experience handling sensitive situations requiring sound judgment under pressure
• Strong analytical skills and comfort using data to inform operational and strategic decisions
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to navigate difficult conversations with empathy and clarity

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with SLA metric frameworks to measure process adoption and outcomes.
• Familiarity with Salesforce case management and operations toolings.
• Experience integrating AI tools or automation into operations workflows.
• Understanding of SQL is a plus.
• Background in employee engagement and culture-building within high impact teams.
• Experience working cross-functionally with product, engineering, legal, and communications teams.