Trust and Safety Lead

About OpenRouter
OpenRouter is the AI routing and infrastructure layer that AI builders, AI-native startups, and enterprises use to access, manage, and optimize their AI usage all through a unified API, billing interface, and analytics platform. We power some of the most advanced AI builders in the world by giving them the flexibility to move fast, scale confidently, and stay future-proof as models evolve.
As enterprise adoption of AI accelerates, OpenRouter sits at the center of how organizations operationalize LLMs across research, product, and production workloads.

The Role
We are hiring a Trust & Safety Lead to build and own OpenRouter’s Trust, Safety, and Compliance function.
This is a 0 → 1 role. You will define policy, build systems, and handle operations, then scale the function over time.
Core Challenges
Enforcing different model provider policies through a unified API

Preventing users from routing around restrictions

Designing sanctions and export controls with imperfect signals

Balancing developer experience with enterprise controls

Detecting coordinated abuse across accounts, usage, and payments

Responsibilities
Policy & Enforcement
Define policies across accounts, payments, and API usage

Ensure compliance with sanctions and regulatory requirements

Translate provider policies into platform-level enforcement

Design enforcement actions and appeals

Systems & Risk
Build a risk-based system driven by aggregated signals

Develop unified risk scoring and tiered enforcement

Partner with engineering on sanctions controls, identity validation, and enforcement systems

Introduce ML-assisted detection for fraud and abuse

Operations (0 → 1)
Handle investigations, enforcement decisions, and appeals

Build workflows while operating them

Use AI for triage and decision support

Turn operational learnings into scalable systems

Provider & Enterprise
Partner with model providers on policy alignment and escalations

Define enterprise controls (allowlists, policies, auditability)

Coordinate across engineering, legal, and go-to-market

Scale
Build and scale the function across policy, systems, and operations

Establish monitoring, escalation frameworks, and KPIs

Qualifications
Experience building or scaling trust & safety, risk, or compliance systems

Strong understanding of sanctions, fraud, and enforcement systems

Experience working cross-functionally with engineering, legal, and operations

Ability to design and operate data-driven systems

Builder mindset with comfort in 0 → 1 and ambiguous environments

Why OpenRouter
Work at the center of the AI infrastructure stack as enterprises define how they adopt LLMs.

High ownership and visibility with direct impact on how OpenRouter is perceived in the market.

Competitive compensation, including base salary and equity.

Fully remote team with a strong culture of autonomy and trust.