This guide is created in service of the Trust & Safety industry, the field that protects people and platforms from online harm: content moderation, policy, investigations, fraud, operations, and safety product. The industry consists entirely of some of the most incredible, brilliant, versatile, and resilient people in the world. It's a roadmap for anyone navigating a transition: restructures, layoffs, and the other departures that put you on the path of finding out what's next.
It is written for the whole industry. Whether you're a brand-new agent who reviewed your first queue last month or a principal policymaker shaping rules for billions, the mechanics of a good transition are the same, and every term of art is explained along the way, with a glossary at the end.
I know this road personally. In late 2022, layoffs had just started sweeping tech, and my team was the first safety team affected at my organization. I had spent years building a safety-focused community team from the ground up: a whole ecosystem of programs, resources, and partnerships. And then I was the person disassembling it. Everything in this guide is something I discovered through doing: some of it taught to me, some learned on the ground, some coached into me by others, and some of it the thing I wish someone had told me. And it is collective wisdom, drawn from hundreds of conversations across the industry: from frontline agents and consultants to executive leaders, on both sides of the layoff.
The theme of this guide is right there in the name of this site: resilience. Not the greeting-card kind. The kind you build through people, evidence, and one next action at a time. And the kind this industry itself keeps demonstrating: whole teams cut one quarter, a record TrustCon the next. Both stories are true, and this guide takes both seriously.
Ultimately, my goal is for you to realize a vision for your own vocation, whether that places you at the heart of the industry's leading firms, in the civil-society organizations and government agencies holding those very firms accountable, or in the research shaping a safer, more human-centered internet. The word I mean is the one Frederich Buechner gave us:
Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.
If you have feedback or ideas to make this better, please reach out! ~ Mike