Head Of Compliance Jobs in California
Head Of Compliance jobs in California are among the most active in the country, with demand concentrated in financial services, healthcare, biotechnology, and technology across a regulatory environment more complex than virtually any other state. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego anchor most of the hiring, with established employers such as Wells Fargo, Kaiser Permanente, and Genentech maintaining significant compliance leadership teams in California. The most sought-after specializations include financial regulatory compliance, clinical and FDA compliance, and data privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Showing 5 of 6+ Head Of Compliance jobs
Responsibilities
About the Team
The Safety Regulatory Compliance Operations (SRCO) pillar executes our US legal obligations while navigating global regulatory overlaps. Sitting within Trust & Safety, SRCO spans seven specialized pillars: Legal Response, Child Safety, Privacy, Intellectual Property, Emergency Response, Law Enforcement Outreach, and Safety Compliance Operations (for emerging regulations), all backed by a dedicated Quality Assurance engine. We bridge law enforcement, rights holders, and user privacy to build platform trust through precise, high-integrity execution. Digital Rights Operations unifies our Intellectual Property (IP) and Privacy Operations pillars into a single, scalable operating system for user, creator, and rights-holder protections in the U.S. market. The function handles copyright and trademark complaints, counter-notifications, and appeals; data subject rights requests; region-change and account-integrity flows; and privacy-driven content removals across established products and emerging entities. By combining rigorous legal execution with product partnership and workflow automation, Digital Rights Operations turns evolving law, policy, and product change into auditable, high-integrity operations that hold up under regulatory and public scrutiny.
Role Description
We are seeking an exceptional leader to serve as Head of QA for the Safety Regulatory Compliance Operations (SRCO) pillar, responsible for building and running a pillar-wide quality assurance program that supports the individual business owners across each regulatory space. This role sits at the intersection of regulatory compliance, operational excellence, risk management, and organizational leadership. As the pillar continues to evolve, this leader will be expected to define the quality frameworks, assurance mechanisms, and success measures that allow business leaders to make better decisions, focus on the right operational priorities, and understand whether their programs are delivering at the required standard. This is not a coordination-only role. We are looking for a strategic architect, a systems thinker, and a hands-on operator who is equally comfortable designing assurance frameworks, reviewing evidence in detail, identifying what business leaders should be paying attention to, and synthesizing the information they need to take action. This role should have strong command of cross-functional dependencies, but should not overstep into owning the cross-functional influence that sits with the business leaders themselves.
Responsibilities
- Pillar-Wide QA Strategy & Frameworks: Define the vision, scope, principles, and operating model for quality assurance across the Safety Regulatory Compliance Operations (SRCO) pillar, ensuring the QA program creates clear and scalable frameworks in service of the pillar’s business leaders.
- Business Leader Enablement: Partner closely with the individual business owners across each regulatory space to ensure they have the insights, analysis, and decision-support needed to address their most important operational deliverables.
- Quality Standards & Assurance Design: Establish clear quality standards, review criteria, control expectations, and assurance methodologies across policy, process, tooling, and execution layers, while aligning with the priorities set by business leaders.
- Risk-Based Coverage & Insight Generation: Build a coverage model that helps surface the most meaningful risks, operational gaps, and performance signals, and tee up for business leaders what they should be thinking about, where attention is required, and what information is needed.
- Cross-Functional Dependency Assessment: Develop deep understanding of the product, operational, policy, legal, compliance, and engineering dependencies that shape execution quality, so QA insights properly reflect the full operating environment without displacing business leader ownership of cross-functional influence.
- Program Measurement & Effectiveness: Build and maintain a robust measurement system with clear KPIs, leading indicators, defect taxonomy, trend analysis, and reporting that demonstrates whether the QA program is doing its job and whether pillar programs are succeeding.
- Root-Cause Identification & Remediation Support: Identify structural weaknesses, recurring defects, and control breakdowns, and frame the findings in a way that enables business leaders to drive the right remediation actions.
- Team Leadership & Capability Building: Lead, coach, and scale a high-performing QA organization, developing strong managers and individual contributors with sharp judgment, operational rigor, and a high bar for execution.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Minimum 5 Years of Relevant Leadership Experience: Extensive experience leading quality assurance, risk, compliance, audit, trust and safety, regulatory operations, or similarly complex control-oriented functions.
- Program Design & Operating Model Expertise: Demonstrated success building and running scalable assurance or quality programs across large, cross-functional organizations.
- Regulatory & Control Fluency: Deep understanding of regulatory compliance expectations, control design, assurance practices, and operational risk management.
- Business Support Orientation: Proven ability to support senior business owners with high-quality analysis, structured insights, and actionable decision support, while respecting clear lines of role ownership.
- Organizational Judgment: Strong understanding of how to operate effectively in environments with multiple business owners, distinct regulatory domains, and complex dependency structures.
- Analytical Strength: Exceptional ability to design metrics, interpret trends, prioritize issues, and distinguish isolated defects from systemic risk.
- Program Effectiveness Mindset: Strong ability to define what success looks like, measure whether programs are working, and demonstrate impact through evidence.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience leading QA or assurance functions in highly regulated, safety, compliance, legal response, trust and safety, or risk-sensitive operational environments.
- Experience supporting multiple business leaders across distinct domains with different regulatory or operational priorities.
- Experience designing defect taxonomy, calibration mechanisms, review frameworks, and management reporting for large-scale operational teams.
Trust & Safety
Content that this role interacts with includes images, video, and text related to everyday life, but it can also include (but is not limited to) bullying; hate speech; child safety; depictions of harm to self and others, and harm to animals. Hence, it is possible that this role will be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis.
TikTok recognizes that keeping our platform safe for the TikTok communities is no ordinary job which can be both rewarding and psychologically demanding and emotionally taxing for some. This is why we are sharing the potential hazards, risks and implications in this unique line of work from the start, so our candidates are well informed before joining.
We are committed to the wellbeing of all our employees and promise to provide comprehensive and evidence-based programs, to promote and support physical and mental wellbeing throughout each employee's journey with us. We believe that wellbeing is a relationship and that everyone has a part to play, so we work in collaboration and consultation with our employees and across our functions in order to ensure a truly person-centred, innovative and integrated approach.
About USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS Reasonable Accommodation
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually) The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $147000 - $352000 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
Responsibilities
About the Team
The Safety Regulatory Compliance Operations (SRCO) pillar executes our US legal obligations while navigating global regulatory overlaps. Sitting within Trust & Safety, SRCO spans seven specialized pillars: Legal Response, Child Safety, Privacy, Intellectual Property, Emergency Response, Law Enforcement Outreach, and Safety Compliance Operations (for emerging regulations), all backed by a dedicated Quality Assurance engine. We bridge law enforcement, rights holders, and user privacy to build platform trust through precise, high-integrity execution. Digital Rights Operations unifies our Intellectual Property (IP) and Privacy Operations pillars into a single, scalable operating system for user, creator, and rights-holder protections in the U.S. market. The function handles copyright and trademark complaints, counter-notifications, and appeals; data subject rights requests; region-change and account-integrity flows; and privacy-driven content removals across established products and emerging entities. By combining rigorous legal execution with product partnership and workflow automation, Digital Rights Operations turns evolving law, policy, and product change into auditable, high-integrity operations that hold up under regulatory and public scrutiny.
Role Description
We are seeking an exceptional leader to serve as Head of QA for the Safety Regulatory Compliance Operations (SRCO) pillar, responsible for building and running a pillar-wide quality assurance program that supports the individual business owners across each regulatory space. This role sits at the intersection of regulatory compliance, operational excellence, risk management, and organizational leadership. As the pillar continues to evolve, this leader will be expected to define the quality frameworks, assurance mechanisms, and success measures that allow business leaders to make better decisions, focus on the right operational priorities, and understand whether their programs are delivering at the required standard. This is not a coordination-only role. We are looking for a strategic architect, a systems thinker, and a hands-on operator who is equally comfortable designing assurance frameworks, reviewing evidence in detail, identifying what business leaders should be paying attention to, and synthesizing the information they need to take action. This role should have strong command of cross-functional dependencies, but should not overstep into owning the cross-functional influence that sits with the business leaders themselves.
Responsibilities
- Pillar-Wide QA Strategy & Frameworks: Define the vision, scope, principles, and operating model for quality assurance across the Safety Regulatory Compliance Operations (SRCO) pillar, ensuring the QA program creates clear and scalable frameworks in service of the pillar’s business leaders.
- Business Leader Enablement: Partner closely with the individual business owners across each regulatory space to ensure they have the insights, analysis, and decision-support needed to address their most important operational deliverables.
- Quality Standards & Assurance Design: Establish clear quality standards, review criteria, control expectations, and assurance methodologies across policy, process, tooling, and execution layers, while aligning with the priorities set by business leaders.
- Risk-Based Coverage & Insight Generation: Build a coverage model that helps surface the most meaningful risks, operational gaps, and performance signals, and tee up for business leaders what they should be thinking about, where attention is required, and what information is needed.
- Cross-Functional Dependency Assessment: Develop deep understanding of the product, operational, policy, legal, compliance, and engineering dependencies that shape execution quality, so QA insights properly reflect the full operating environment without displacing business leader ownership of cross-functional influence.
- Program Measurement & Effectiveness: Build and maintain a robust measurement system with clear KPIs, leading indicators, defect taxonomy, trend analysis, and reporting that demonstrates whether the QA program is doing its job and whether pillar programs are succeeding.
- Root-Cause Identification & Remediation Support: Identify structural weaknesses, recurring defects, and control breakdowns, and frame the findings in a way that enables business leaders to drive the right remediation actions.
- Team Leadership & Capability Building: Lead, coach, and scale a high-performing QA organization, developing strong managers and individual contributors with sharp judgment, operational rigor, and a high bar for execution.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications
- Minimum 5 Years of Relevant Leadership Experience: Extensive experience leading quality assurance, risk, compliance, audit, trust and safety, regulatory operations, or similarly complex control-oriented functions.
- Program Design & Operating Model Expertise: Demonstrated success building and running scalable assurance or quality programs across large, cross-functional organizations.
- Regulatory & Control Fluency: Deep understanding of regulatory compliance expectations, control design, assurance practices, and operational risk management.
- Business Support Orientation: Proven ability to support senior business owners with high-quality analysis, structured insights, and actionable decision support, while respecting clear lines of role ownership.
- Organizational Judgment: Strong understanding of how to operate effectively in environments with multiple business owners, distinct regulatory domains, and complex dependency structures.
- Analytical Strength: Exceptional ability to design metrics, interpret trends, prioritize issues, and distinguish isolated defects from systemic risk.
- Program Effectiveness Mindset: Strong ability to define what success looks like, measure whether programs are working, and demonstrate impact through evidence.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience leading QA or assurance functions in highly regulated, safety, compliance, legal response, trust and safety, or risk-sensitive operational environments.
- Experience supporting multiple business leaders across distinct domains with different regulatory or operational priorities.
- Experience designing defect taxonomy, calibration mechanisms, review frameworks, and management reporting for large-scale operational teams.
Trust & Safety
Content that this role interacts with includes images, video, and text related to everyday life, but it can also include (but is not limited to) bullying; hate speech; child safety; depictions of harm to self and others, and harm to animals. Hence, it is possible that this role will be exposed to harmful content on a daily basis.
TikTok recognizes that keeping our platform safe for the TikTok communities is no ordinary job which can be both rewarding and psychologically demanding and emotionally taxing for some. This is why we are sharing the potential hazards, risks and implications in this unique line of work from the start, so our candidates are well informed before joining.
We are committed to the wellbeing of all our employees and promise to provide comprehensive and evidence-based programs, to promote and support physical and mental wellbeing throughout each employee's journey with us. We believe that wellbeing is a relationship and that everyone has a part to play, so we work in collaboration and consultation with our employees and across our functions in order to ensure a truly person-centred, innovative and integrated approach.
About USDS
TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC is dedicated to the safety and security of millions of Americans who create, discover, and connect with what they love on the apps we operate. The Joint Venture has been established in compliance with the Executive Order signed by President Trump on September 25, 2025. Our foundation is a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program we operate under defined safeguards to protect national security and secure U.S. user data, apps and the algorithm. We safeguard the U.S. content ecosystem, holding decision-making authority for trust and safety policies and moderation. USDS Joint Venture helps ensure Americans can continue to express their creativity, discover new hobbies and interests, and build thriving communities and businesses on a global scale.
On-site presence across teams allows the company to operate with greater speed, alignment, and agility — especially in areas like real-time decision-making, team development, and integrated execution. As such, the company is shifting from a hybrid work model to a fully in-person schedule up to 5 days a week.
Why Join Us
Inspiring creativity is at the core of TikTok's mission. Our innovative product is built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and bring joy - a mission we work towards every day.
We strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and innovate as one team. We're resilient and embrace challenges as they come. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
TikTok is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
USDS Reasonable Accommodation
USDS is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/USDS-RA
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually) The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $147000 - $352000 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units.
Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates:
Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
See All 6 Head Of Compliance Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Head Of Compliance JobsHead Of Compliance Jobs by City in California
Where California roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Head Of Compliance Job Market in California
A snapshot from current California openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
What California Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in head of compliance jobs across California.
- Juris Doctor or bachelor's degree in business, finance, law, or a related field
- Relevant professional certification such as CCEP, CRCM, CHC, or CIPP/US
- Seven or more years of compliance experience in a regulated California industry
- Deep knowledge of California-specific regulations including CCPA, CMIA, and DFPI rules
- Experience managing compliance programs across multiple California business lines or entities
- Strong background presenting compliance risk assessments to executive leadership and boards
Head Of Compliance Jobs in California: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a head of compliance in California?
Most heads of compliance in California reach the role through a combination of a relevant degree in law, business, or a related field and years of progressively senior compliance experience in a regulated industry. California does not issue a state-specific compliance license, but employers strongly favor candidates holding recognized professional certifications such as the Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional, Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager, or Certified in Healthcare Compliance designation. Hands-on experience navigating California-specific frameworks, including CCPA, Department of Financial Protection and Innovation rules, or FDA requirements, meaningfully strengthens a candidacy.
How much do head of compliances make in California?
Head of compliances in California earn a median of about $96,980 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $57,530 for the lowest 10% to over $158,280 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire head of compliances in California?
Employers hiring head of compliances in California right now include xe, Adyen, and TikTok, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. California's dense concentration of regulated industries, from major bank branches and health systems to publicly traded biotechnology firms, means the employer base for this role is unusually broad and active compared with most states.
Which California cities have the most head of compliance jobs?
The cities with the most head of compliance openings in California are San Jose, San Francisco, and Irvine. Los Angeles and San Francisco drive the largest share of demand through their headquarters-heavy financial services, technology, and healthcare sectors, while San Diego's outsized biotechnology and life sciences cluster produces strong and consistent openings for compliance leaders with FDA and clinical research backgrounds.
Are there remote head of compliance jobs in California?
Yes, and more than most senior leadership roles. About 75% of head of compliance openings tied to California are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, reflecting the desk-based and policy-driven nature of much of the work. The portions of the role most commonly performed remotely include policy development, regulatory monitoring, training program oversight, and reporting to executive leadership, while on-site presence is more often required for industries such as healthcare and manufacturing where floor-level compliance auditing is part of the job.
How can I get hired as a head of compliance in California with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is a compliance analyst or compliance coordinator role inside a California-regulated industry, such as banking, health insurance, or life sciences, where you build direct exposure to the regulatory frameworks California employers care most about. Large California employers including Kaiser Permanente, Bank of America's California operations, and major biotechnology firms regularly hire into associate compliance roles that do not require prior compliance titles. Earning an entry-level certification such as the CCEP-I while working in a risk, legal, audit, or quality assurance role is the credential that most consistently opens the door to a compliance career track.
Where can I find and apply to head of compliance jobs in California?
You can find and apply to head of compliance jobs in California on Migrate Mate, which lists current California openings updated regularly. Search the listings to find roles that match your experience level, industry background, and preferred location or work arrangement, then apply directly to the ones that fit.
See All 6 Head Of Compliance Jobs in California
Find roles in California that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Head Of Compliance Jobs