Strategic Communications and Risk Manager

• Manage and resolve high-stakes escalations, P0 incidents, platform outages, and creator issues in close partnership with PR, Product, Engineering, and Trust and Safety.
• Craft empathetic, brand-aligned 1:1 creator de-escalation messages and high-impact public social media responses to protect brand reputation.
• Synthesize complex technical and policy issues into concise situational reports, platform alerts, and leadership summaries under strict internal SLAs.
• Collaborate proactively across cross-functional teams to unify communication strategies, mitigate brand risk, and identify emerging escalation trends. Identify ongoing opportunities to continuously improve the user experience, external communication templates, and internal escalation workflows.
• Participate in an on-call weekend rotation, operating independently as an Incident Manager to triage crises and send executive alerts.

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
  
• 2 years of experience in a customer or client-facing role supporting incident response, crisis management, online escalations, trust and safety operations, PR, or external communications.

Preferred qualifications:

• Experience with YouTube creators, digital platform culture, and in managing high-stakes de-escalation of sensitive creator issues.
• Experience as a working incident manager in a fast-paced environment, including coordinating live incidents and sending executive alerts during off-hours.
• Ability to use social listening tools, boolean queries, and volume analytics to detect emerging brand risks and inform response strategies.
• Ability to partner across PR, Legal, Trust and Safety, Product, and Engineering teams to drive resolution for critical platform incidents.
• Excellent editorial judgment aligned skills with YouTube’s brand voice, with ability to translate complex product and policy issues into empathetic, trusted messaging.

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.

As a Strategic Communications and Risk Manager, you will be a critical member of our Escalations team, enabling 24x7 rapid response for YouTube’s most time-sensitive escalations. In this role, you will handle and investigate complex platform issues and high-severity support scenarios across multiple escalation channels. You will act as a subject-matter expert, responsible for executing real-time de-escalation strategies, crafting impactful public social responses, and delivering sensitive 1:1 creator communications.

You will report to the Global Escalation Manager, applying operational excellence and sound judgment to safeguard brand reputation in a fast-paced environment. During active incidents, you will collaborate extensively with cross-functional teams to manage incidents end-to-end, mitigate brand risk, and ensure swift, effective resolution for user and creator issues.

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.

To support YouTube’s worldwide creator community 24/7, this role participates in an operational coverage rotation, including scheduled weekend and holiday shifts.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
  
• 2 years of experience in a customer or client-facing role supporting incident response, crisis management, online escalations, trust and safety operations, PR, or external communications.