The Privacy Engineering Manager will lead the technical implementation of privacy controls across products and services. This role requires a strong blend of software engineering, privacy law awareness and people management to embed privacy by design. The successful candidate will work closely with legal, security, product and engineering teams to reduce privacy risk and deliver scalable solutions.
Privacy Engineering Manager Job Profile
The Privacy Engineering Manager is responsible for shaping and delivering a privacy engineering programme that aligns with legal and regulatory obligations. This role oversees a team of privacy engineers and advises stakeholders on technical design, data flows and risk mitigation.
Reporting to the Head of Privacy or Chief Information Security Officer, the manager collaborates across the organisation to operationalise privacy policies and improve developer tooling, CI CD pipelines and automated controls.
Privacy Engineering Manager Job Description
The Privacy Engineering Manager leads the design and delivery of engineering solutions that ensure personal data is collected, stored and processed in accordance with applicable privacy laws and internal standards. You will define privacy architecture patterns, influence product roadmaps and work with engineering leads to integrate privacy features into development lifecycles. The role requires hands-on technical knowledge combined with the ability to translate legal requirements into practical, measurable controls.
Key responsibilities include establishing privacy engineering best practices, developing data discovery and classification frameworks, and implementing automated enforcement mechanisms such as consent and purpose management, data retention and access controls. You will manage privacy risk assessments, threat models and technical reviews to support new product initiatives and existing services.
The manager will recruit, mentor and grow a team of privacy engineers, setting objectives, running performance reviews and promoting a culture of privacy awareness. You will also represent the engineering perspective in cross-functional privacy governance, liaise with regulators when necessary and report on metrics that demonstrate privacy maturity and programme impact.
Privacy Engineering Manager Duties and Responsibilities
- Lead and manage a team of privacy engineers and technical specialists.
- Design and implement privacy by design patterns across services and platforms.
- Develop and maintain data mapping, classification and lineage tools.
- Create automated controls for consent, data minimisation and retention.
- Conduct privacy risk assessments, threat modelling and technical reviews.
- Liaise with legal and compliance to interpret GDPR and other data protection requirements.
- Integrate privacy checks into CI CD pipelines and developer workflows.
- Define metrics and dashboards to track privacy programme effectiveness.
- Provide technical advice on anonymisation and pseudonymisation techniques.
- Manage vendor assessments for privacy and data processing services.
- Develop training and guidance to improve privacy literacy among engineers.
- Report to senior leadership on privacy risks, status and remediation plans.
Privacy Engineering Manager Requirements and Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related discipline.
- At least 5 years of software engineering experience and 2 years in a privacy-focused technical role.
- Proven experience managing engineering teams and delivering technical programmes.
- Strong understanding of GDPR, data protection principles and privacy engineering patterns.
- Hands-on experience with data discovery, encryption, anonymisation and access controls.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms, microservices, APIs and secure development practices.
- Excellent communication skills and ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders.
- Experience with privacy tooling, consent frameworks and compliance automation is desirable.
- Ability to translate legal requirements into pragmatic engineering solutions.
- Professional certifications such as CIPP E or CISSP are advantageous.
