Senior Privacy Engineer

About the role

You will own major components of our privacy technology, taking full responsibility for their maintenance and improvement over time. You will lead complex, company-wide privacy initiatives from initial scoping through execution and post-mortem analysis. Your daily work will involve protecting user privacy by designing systems using Go, Node.js, Python, and occasionally Perl. You will also contribute to critical resources like Tracker Radar and build privacy features such as Web Tracking and Email Protections. This role requires deep engagement with our privacy review and audit processes to ensure all products align with our principles. You will mentor other engineers over time, supporting the growth of the Privacy Team. If you seek end-to-end ownership of impactful work, this is the role for you.

Key facts

Location: Remote

Engagement: Full-time

Compensation: $178,500 USD annually and stock options. Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.

Eligibility for company-sponsored health benefits is limited to team members based in the United States. This program does not extend to team members located in other countries, such as Canada or the UK.

What you'll do

Design systems for improving our search indexes and AI features without compromising user privacy, ensuring data minimization and user trust are prioritized.

Build and maintain features on top of our Tracker Radar crawler to detect emerging privacy threats and adapt our defenses proactively.

Implement new privacy features and sustain existing protections, such as our Web Tracking Protections and Email Protections, to meet evolving user needs.

Wrangle vague and complex privacy challenges into actionable engineering solutions, balancing innovation with practical constraints.

Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to validate decisions and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Take ownership of major components within our privacy stack, driving improvements from implementation through post-mortem reviews.

Participate actively in privacy review and audit processes to verify that all product developments adhere to our strict privacy principles.

Utilize Go, Node.js, Python, and (sometimes) Perl to write pragmatic, performant, and testable code that scales with our infrastructure.

Mentor other engineers on the Privacy Team, supporting their career development and strengthening the overall capability of the team.

Ensure all projects align with our privacy-by-design philosophy, embedding user protection into every stage of the development lifecycle.

Contribute to the strategic direction of privacy technology, identifying gaps and proposing robust solutions that set industry standards.

Maintain and evolve our privacy tooling to keep pace with emerging threats and regulatory requirements across global markets.

Champion transparency and user control, translating complex privacy concepts into clear guidance for internal and external audiences.

Drive end-to-end project execution, managing scope, timelines, and dependencies to deliver high-quality privacy features on schedule.

Requirements

You must have experience leading and collaborating on high-impact and complex projects from proposal through post-mortem.

You must possess the ability to wrangle vague problems, propose innovative solutions, and execute them effectively, involving others when necessary.

You must have hands-on experience working on privacy solutions in an engineering capacity, such as tracker blockers, differential privacy, or similar technologies.

You must demonstrate a deep technical understanding of online privacy threats and the existing solution landscape to protect against them.

You must be proficient in at least one of the following languages: Go, Node.js, Python, or Perl.

You must have excellent communication skills, with the ability to validate your decisions and convey them clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

You must be comfortable with camera-enabled video conferencing, as participation in virtual meetings is required.

You must be eligible to travel at least two times per year, including attendance at our all-hands meetup and a team retreat, each lasting approximately four to five days.

You must be committed to working within the framework of our privacy principles and ensuring alignment across all product initiatives.

You must be able to operate in a remote-first environment while maintaining high standards of ownership and accountability.

You must be willing to mentor peers and contribute to the professional growth of engineers within the Privacy Team.

You must have a strong commitment to user privacy and be passionate about advancing privacy technology in a growing organization.

You must be able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment without compromising on quality or attention to detail.

You must be eligible for employment in the country from which you will perform the work, with no expectation of remote work authorization sponsorship.

Nice to have

Experience with browser extension development or search infrastructure is preferred.

Familiarity with privacy auditing processes and compliance frameworks is highly valued.

Experience contributing to open source projects relevant to privacy or security is encouraged.

Practical notes

You will be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing.

Expect to travel at least two times per year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat, each around 4-5 days. While extenuating circumstances may prevent attendance, we expect you to make other meaningful contributions to the company in such cases.