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4 min read T&S Insider

Ten things no one tells you about working in T&S

Newcomers to the Trust & Safety world often ask me what's it like to work in the industry and the things I wish I'd know before I started. So here are my ten hard-won lessons for the next generation of online safety professionals

I'm Alice Hunsberger. Trust & Safety Insider is my weekly rundown on the topics, industry trends and workplace strategies that trust and safety professionals need to know about to do their job.

I returned from my recent New York trip with the sense that T&S isn't an obvious straightforward career choice to undertake, especially not in 2025. So I’m sharing a few lessons from more than 15 years in the field.

They’ll be most useful to early-career folks, but I suspect many T&S Insider readers have their own wisdom to add too. If that’s you, get in touch — I’d love to share your lessons in a future edition.

Yesterday was a bank holiday in the UK so, if you're wondering why this is hitting your inbox on a Tuesday, that's why. And, if you're in Dublin for the TSPA EMEA summit, enjoy! — Alice

SPONSORED BY RESOLVER, proudly attending TSPA EMEA 2025 in Dublin

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How to survive — and thrive — in T&S

Why this matters: Despite Trust & Safety becoming a more formalised profession, guidance for navigating its emotional, ethical, and operational challenges remains scarce. Here are my reflections based on 15 years working in a wide variety of roles across this fascinating space

The rapid growth of Trust & Safety as an industry means that are few public-facing playbooks out there for building healthy and successful careers. Instead, T&S professionals tend to swap wisdom in Slack channels, Signal DMs, and conference hallways. For whatever reason, they rarely write it down. 

When it occasionally does happen, they’re often full of gems about what life is like as a T&S worker and what you can do to both survive and thrive.  Two of the best resources that I’ve come across are:

I wanted to add to that list so here are some lessons I’ve learned over the years: 

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Published by:

Alice Hunsberger

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