Corporate Security Operations Manager

Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.

As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.

We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.

Whatnot's Corporate Security team is looking for an experienced security operations leader to own the physical safety of our people — across offices, live events, and the field.

This role lives in both the strategic and tactical worlds. Half the job is program-building: developing the frameworks, playbooks, and vendor standards that scale with a fast-growing company. The other half is being the person our teams rely on when the stakes are high — a flagship seller event in a new city, a sensitive field engagement, a crisis developing overseas. You need to be equally comfortable writing the playbook on Monday and executing it on Friday.

You'll partner daily with Workplace, People, Marketing, and Category teams, and manage a network of third-party vendors across our global and growing portfolio. The role reports into Corporate Security and sits at the intersection of operational rigor and strategic program growth.

• Office Security Operations

  • Own the security standard across all Whatnot global office locations

  • Manage third-party guard vendors to performance expectations you will define — not just oversight, but accountability

  • Partner with Workplace on emergency response programs

  • Be the person with the plan when something goes wrong at one of our sites

• Event Security Operations

  • Develop repeatable security playbooks for events ranging from intimate seller meetups to large-scale live activations

  • Conduct advance site assessments (in-person or virtual) and implement appropriate security measures

  • Serve as the on-the-ground security lead at high-visibility activations, managing vendors in real time

• Field Security Operations

  • Assess and mitigate risk for seller engagements, category activations, and community-based initiatives

  • Build training and incident response protocols for Category and Community team members working in non-traditional environments: retail floors, warehouses, private residences, etc

• Travel Security Management

  • Assist in the initial design and oversight of Whatnot’s travel security framework supporting domestic and international travel

  • Support response coordination for travel-related incidents and crises as needed

This role will be based in Los Angeles, CA or New York, NY. The successful candidate must live within commuting distance of one of these two locations. Expected in-office cadence: 2–3 days per week, with flexibility to be on-site more frequently during major events, activations, or security initiatives.

This role includes regular domestic and international travel (~25-40%) to support events, office operations, and field engagements.

People who do well at Whatnot tend to be comfortable figuring things out as they go, biased toward action, and genuinely curious about what they're building. They care more about outcomes than credit and stay close to the product and the people using it.

As our next Corporate Security Operations Manager, you should have 10+ years of physical security experience, plus:

• 10+ years of experience in corporate security operations, with extensive depth in the multi-office environment pillar and solid experience in the events/field security pillar

• A track record of managing external vendors to high standards and running cross-functional partnerships without friction

• You must know what "good" looks like and how to build toward it in a fast-moving organization

• You are at your best when the environment is fast-moving and the playbook doesn't exist yet — you spot what needs fixing, scope it, and get to work

• You communicate in plain language that non-security stakeholders can act on

• You are willing to work in office 2-3 days a week and travel at least 25% of your time

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience in high-growth tech companies, marketplaces, or live-event businesses

• International office or event security experience

• Hands-on experience with global travel security programs

• Generous Holiday and Time off Policy

• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision

• Work From Home Support

  • Home office setup allowance

  • Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet

• Care benefits

  • Monthly allowance for wellness

  • Annual allowance towards Childcare

  • Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses

• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally

• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app

  • All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product. We're passionate about building the best user experience, and all employees are expected to use Whatnot as both a buyer and a seller as part of their job (our dogfooding budget makes this fun and easy!).

• Parental Leave

  • 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.