Privacy Engineering Director

Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai, which lets you chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs, all in one place. Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work, you've come to the right place!

Working on the Privacy Functional Team, you'll be a privacy engineering leader at DuckDuckGo, the person who steps in on the most complex, ambiguous, and high-stakes privacy challenges that arise across our products. Using deep expertise in privacy engineering, audit frameworks, and cross-functional collaboration, you'll lead critical privacy initiatives that shape the future of private browsing, private search, agentic computing ,and work on related projects. Recent projects include:

1. Building a privacy engineering framework for DuckDuckGo's agentic browsing products, solving novel challenges around user data in AI-assisted workflows.

2. Designing technical solutions to enable private search index capabilities while preserving strict privacy guarantees at scale.

As Engineering Director, Privacy, you'll own high-complexity privacy projects from definition to delivery, evolve our privacy triage and review processes, build automation that reduces engineering toil, and grow the next generation of privacy engineers, all while contributing significantly to privacy strategy across the company.

• 10+ years experience leading privacy reviews, audits, or technical privacy programs at a consumer-facing product company with a large (1M+) user base.

• 4+ years privacy engineering leadership experience - building infrastructure tools, data minimization systems, or equivalent privacy-preserving technical solutions.

• Director, Head of, or VP-level experience with direct management and hiring responsibilities and meaningful technical scope.

• Proven ability to DRI high-complexity, cross-functional projects with minimal direction.

• Strong communication skills, with a track record of translating privacy principles into practical engineering decisions across competing stakeholder needs.

• Experience improving organizational processes — identifying bottlenecks, implementing automation, and building scalable review systems.

• Passion for privacy and raising the standard of trust online.

$243,800 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.

Our Team Member Support Guide explains how we prioritize your wellbeing including paid parental leave, office setup, and co-working allowances.

Hiring works best when it's a two-way street. Learn how we help you get to know DuckDuckGo, envision your future role here, and find out more about how we hire.

DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.

We want to ensure that our hiring process is accessible. If you need reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process because of a medical condition or disability, please send an email to careers@duckduckgo.com to let us know the nature of your request.

1. You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing

2. Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.

3. While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.

4. A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.

5. By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.

Disclosure Statement: Use of AI in Hiring Process

As part of our commitment to enhancing our recruitment process, we utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technology to assist in reviewing and summarizing job applications and test projects, including those tools integrated into our recruitment vendor platforms. We use AI to flag potentially fraudulent applications, analyze and summarize applicants’ experience, interviews, and project performance, and help streamline our selection process.

Key Principles:

1. Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.

2. Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.

3. Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.

By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to the use of AI technology in our review process. If you would like to request an alternative selection process, please contact us as at careers@duckduckgo.com. Thank you for your interest in joining DuckDuckGo!