Team Nextdoor

Bridging Teams and Building Community: Meet Andy Levine, NOPS Customer Experience Manager

Written by Team Nextdoor

In this Employee Spotlight, we chat with Andy Levine, Customer Experience Manager on Nextdoor’s NOPS (Nextdoor Operations) team. From piloting new roles to reviewing thousands of ads weekly, Andy shares how empathy, ownership, and passion drive operational excellence at Nextdoor.


What initially drew you to join the NOPS team at Nextdoor, and how has your role evolved since you started?

When I first joined NOPS, it was to help pilot a new role called Product Operations Manager (now known as Customer Experience Manager), which was designed to serve as a bridge between our product and support teams. I’ve always been passionate about providing help and enjoy teaching and explaining processes, so the role felt like a great fit. It allowed me to apply a skillset that comes naturally in a meaningful, impactful way. I was also drawn to the NOPS team culture, it was clear from the start that this was a group of people who genuinely enjoyed working together.

What’s one operational challenge unique to Nextdoor that people might not expect, and how does your team address it?

A unique challenge is that our support agents aren’t internal Nextdoor employees, they’re hired through a Business Process Outsourcer (BPO). This helps us scale support affordably, but it also means we can’t simply turn to the person next to us to communicate changes.

Instead, we rely on a structured communication flow. We maintain a robust internal Knowledge Base within Salesforce, and we hold weekly syncs with BPO leadership to keep agents informed about product updates, experiments, and feature changes. This approach allows our product teams to move quickly and iterate without compromising the support experience for neighbors and customers.

How would you describe the culture within the NOPS team in three words, and why did you choose those words?

Empathy – Empathy is at the core of everything we do. Whether we’re supporting neighbors, advertisers, frontline agents, or internal stakeholders, we approach each interaction with care and thoughtfulness. Our aim is to create a great experience while ensuring our partners and agents are set up for success.

Ownership – We take ownership not just within our individual roles but as a team. We’re quick to step in when someone needs support, and we bring a proactive mindset to cross-functional work, offering feedback, context, and insights to improve outcomes across the company.

Passionate – We care deeply about our work and the mission of Nextdoor. That passion drives us to advocate for improvements, solve hard problems, and go the extra mile to support the community, our customers, and our teammates.

How does your team celebrate wins and support each other through challenges?

We’ve built a strong, supportive culture through a tradition called Grateful Friday. Every week, we share shoutouts in our Slack channel to recognize NOPS teammates and cross-functional partners for their contributions, big or small.

We also bring some of these acknowledgments into our monthly meetings, giving us time to reflect and celebrate together. This ritual helps keep morale high and strengthens our connection, especially during busy or challenging times.

Can you share a specific instance where your team’s operational improvements directly impacted key business metrics?

One area where our team has had a meaningful impact is in the ad and creative review flow. We review ~7,000 ads manually each week, and while the volume is high, we put a strong emphasis on ensuring each review is done carefully and consistently.

Because ad revenue is closely tied to how quickly and accurately we can approve advertiser content, we closely monitor our rejection rate on a weekly basis. If an ad is rejected, it can’t run, so it’s important that we maintain a healthy balance between enforcing quality standards and minimizing unnecessary friction.

We routinely analyze rejection trends to identify where we might improve internal guidance, clarify policy, or recommend product changes. This has helped reduce avoidable rejections, support faster approvals, and ultimately improve the advertiser experience, all while ensuring that ads align with Nextdoor’s values and community standards.

Looking ahead, what operational aspects of Nextdoor are you most excited to help develop or improve?

I’m especially excited about how we can leverage AI to make our operations more efficient and scalable. AI is a powerful tool for content generation and automation, and it directly supports our focus on cost, quality, and speed.

This could mean helping support agents find accurate answers faster, automating parts of the ad and creative review process to reduce delays, or generating documentation for new features more efficiently. The key is implementing these tools thoughtfully, preserving quality while freeing up our team to focus on higher-impact work.

We’re just getting started, and I’m excited for NOPS to help lead the way.


Interested in joining Andy and the NOPS team at Nextdoor? Check out our careers page to explore current opportunities and help us build technology that brings neighborhoods together. This article is part of our ongoing series highlighting the talented individuals across Nextdoor’s organization. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories from our team as we continue to explore the people and partnerships that make Nextdoor a unique platform. Follow us on LinkedIn and X to catch future installments featuring more of our team members.

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