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.

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