Sr. Staff Software Engineer, Trust & Safety

Company: Quizlet
Location: San Francisco
Posted on: April 13, 2025

Job Description:

About Quizlet:Inspired by our belief that anyone can learn anything and powered by our own curiosity, we build the smartest tools we can imagine to help students learn.Quizlet is the popular, global learning platform and app that millions of students, teachers and everyday people use to study any subject imaginable for school, work or as part of their personal interests -- including two-thirds of high school students and half of all college students in the US. Combining cognitive science and machine learning, Quizlet guides students through adaptive study activities to confidently reach their learning goals.Valued at $1 billion, Quizlet has raised over $60 million in venture capital from investors including Icon Ventures, Union Square Ventures, General Atlantic, Costanoa Ventures, Owl Ventures, and Altos Ventures.To serve our global community of learners, our teams tackle lofty technical challenges and design for use cases across cultures and languages. We work hard, act like owners, and collaborate every chance we get. We're energized by the potential to power more learners through multiple approaches and various tools.About the Team:The Trust & Safety team at Quizlet is dedicated to protecting our users, platform, and business from harm while delivering safe, seamless, and delightful experiences. We craft and implement strategies and solutions to maintain user safety, enhance trust, and prevent fraud across all areas of Quizlet. We ensure scalable and effective protections, by building innovative tools, modernizing existing systems, and leveraging industry-leading technologies. This team works collaboratively across Engineering, Product, Policy, Operations, and other functions, playing a central role in safeguarding Quizlet's global learning community.Key areas of focus include:

• Content Safety: Proactively protecting against harmful user-generated and AI-generated content while efficiently managing user reports and moderation workflows.
• Fraud Prevention and Bad Actor Protections: Safeguarding customers and the business from bad actors while minimizing friction for legitimate users.
• User Trust and Reputation: Establishing systems that enhance trust, balance product access, and provide a safe user experience.About the Role:As Sr. Staff Software Engineer for Trust & Safety, you will play a pivotal role in building and leading a brand new team. Your time will be split across leadership activities-defining strategy, coaching team members and driving execution-and hands-on engineering contributions to solve complex technical challenges, architect systems, and deliver results.This is an opportunity to shape the future of Trust & Safety at Quizlet and make a meaningful impact on millions of learners around the world.We're happy to share that this is an onsite position. To help foster team collaboration, we require that employees be in the office at a minimum of three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and as needed by your manager or the company. We believe that this working environment facilitates increased work efficiency, team partnership, and supports growth as an employee and organization.In this role, you will:

• Define and drive the technical vision and strategy for Trust & Safety at Quizlet
• Act as a thought leader, setting high standards for engineering excellence and quality across the team
• Coach, mentor, and support the growth of engineers on the team
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Product, Security, Data Science, and Policy, to align on priorities and deliver impactful outcomes
• Drive team execution and delivery, ensuring projects are completed on time and with high quality
• Design and implement scalable systems and frameworks to detect and mitigate harmful content, fraud, and abuse on the platform
• Build tools and automation to streamline moderation and trust & safety incident response processes
• Develop reputation systems and trust models to enhance user experiences while protecting against bad actors
• Partner with data scientists to implement machine learning models for proactive threat detection.
• Lead incident investigations, postmortems, and long-term improvements to trust & safetyWhat you bring to the table:
  • 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a senior technical leadership role
  • Proven expertise in Trust & Safety domains, such as content moderation, fraud prevention, abuse detection, or user reputation systems
  • Strong software development skills, with proficiency in modern programming languages (e.g., Go, Python, PHP, JavaScript)
  • Experience designing and building large-scale, distributed systems with a focus on reliability, performance, and scalability
  • Exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to influence and drive alignment across teams
  • A passion for creating safe and trusted online experiences for usersBonus points if you have:
    • Experience working with machine learning models in Trust & Safety applications
    • Familiarity with regulatory and compliance considerations related to content and user safety
    • Familiarity with some or all of the following: Kubernetes, GitHub, CircleCI, ArgoCD, Google Cloud, Terraform, Jira, Confluence, SlackCompensation, Benefits & Perks:
      • Quizlet is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Salary transparency helps to mitigate unfair hiring practices when it comes to discrimination and pay gaps. Total compensation for this role is market competitive, including a starting base salary of $210,000 - $265,000, depending on location and experience, as well as company stock options
      • Collaborate with your manager and team to create a healthy work-life balance
      • 20 vacation days (and we expect you to take them!)
      • Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, HMO, VSP Choice)
      • Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
      • Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
      • Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits
      • 40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choiceWe strive to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome!We work to create a holistic interview process, where both Quizlet and candidates have an opportunity to view what it would be like to work together, in exploring a mutually beneficial partnership.We provide a transparent setting, that gives a comprehensive view of who we are!In Closing:We hope you are excited about everything you read so far. We highly encourage you to apply for this position, even if you feel you do not meet all the requirements. Quizlet is always looking for amazing folks that believe in our mission and can contribute to our team in various ways - not merely candidates that fit a certain mold.We have a bias for action, take initiative, and take pride in delivering results. We make informed decisions whenever possible but are unafraid to take calculated risks on great ideas to promote learning. We embrace challenges and see effort as the path to mastery. We're constantly seeking opportunities to learn and we embrace curiosity. Quality matters at Quizlet, and we hold the bar high on everything we do.We treat each other with honesty and respect, encourage vigorous debate, and seek critical feedback. We value diversity, humility, transparency, and collaboration as the best paths to our success - as individuals, as a team, and as a company.Quizlet's success as an online learning community depends on a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are actively working to build a team that is representative of the diverse communities we serve, and an open, inclusive work environment where all employees can thrive. As an equal opportunity employer and a tech company committed to societal change, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. Come join us!To All Recruiters and Placement Agencies:At this time Quizlet does not accept unsolicited agency resumes and/or profiles.Please do not forward unsolicited agency resumes to our website or to any Quizlet employee. Quizlet will not pay fees to any third-party agency or firm nor will it be responsible for any agency fees associated with unsolicited resumes. All unsolicited resumes received will be considered the property of Quizlet.
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Keywords: Quizlet, Santa Rosa , Sr. Staff Software Engineer, Trust & Safety, IT / Software / Systems , San Francisco, California