Sr Principal Research Engineer

What's the role?

The Privacy Engineering team is looking for aSr Principal Research Engineer toown and evolve HERE's Privacy by Design framework, ensuring privacy requirements are integrated into every stage of the product development lifecycle. Lead the continuous improvement of privacy threshold assessments, Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), product privacy assessments, privacy requirements engineering, and review governance. Drive the automation of manual activities, embed privacy controls into engineering workflows, and enable scalable, risk-based decision making.

The Privacy Engineeringfunctionispart oftheLegal and Compliance teamand partners closely with Product, Engineering, Security and Architecture to embed Privacy by Design throughout the product development lifecycle. As a member of this global team, you will design and deliver scalable privacy engineering solutions, drive the automation and continuous improvement of core privacy processes, and provide technical expertise that enables development teams to build privacy into products from the outset.

Main responsibilities:

As our privacy program continues to evolve, we are expanding our technical capabilities to automate and scale privacy processes, embed Privacy by Design into engineering workflows, and deliver the next generation of privacy engineering solutions.

• Automation of privacy management:Design and deliver thetooling, infrastructure and workflows that automate and scale HERE’s core privacy operations, including DPIA’s, Report of Processing Activities (RoPA), Data Subject Rights (DSR), privacy assessments, consent management, retention controls, and evidence collection. Develop solutions that reduce manual effort, improve auditability, and provide continuous compliance assurance.
• Privacy by Design Ownership:Evolve and operate HERE's Privacy by Design framework end-to-end including privacy threshold assessments, DPIA methodology, privacy requirements engineering, and privacy review governance. Optimizehow different stakeholders interface with the process, automate manual steps, and 'shift privacy left' so that privacy requirements are embedded from the earliest stages of the product development lifecycle.
• Data Subject Rights (DSR) Enablement:Drive the automation and continuous improvement of end-to-end DSR processes, including data discovery, fulfillment, auditability, and operational metrics.
• Privacy Scanners, Metrics and Monitoring: Developprivacy risk- estimationscannersacross data andcode,(including detection of direct and indirect identifiers).Build the metadata, telemetry, dashboards and KPIs that measure privacy program effectiveness, operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and residual risk. Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize, and automate privacy processes across the organization.
• Technical Privacy Advisor:Act as the principal technical advisor to Product, Engineering, Architecture, and Security teams on privacy-by-design implementation. Define engineering patterns, reference architectures, and technical standards for privacy controls, ensuring consistent implementation across products and platforms.
• Collaboration and Privacy Standards:Partner with Product, Engineering, Security, Legal, and Privacy teams to promote privacy-by-design practices, conduct technical privacy and risk assessments, contribute to privacy standards and guidance, and support the adoption of scalable privacy engineering solutions.

Who are you?

• Degree in Computer Science,Mathematicsor another relevant technical field.
• Significant experience in privacy engineering, privacy architecture, or a comparable technical privacy role, with a proven track record of implementing Privacy by Design principles in production systems.
• Extensive experience designing, operating and continuously improving end-to-end DSR processes, including intake, identity verification, data discovery, fulfilment, and evidencing, including the automation and tooling that support them.
• Extensive experience conducting Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), privacy threshold assessments, and comprehensive privacy assessments of products, platforms, AI systems, and new technologies, including translating findings into technical requirements and implementation plans.
• Deep technical expertise in systems architecture, cloud environments, and Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs), with a strong track record of applying these capabilities to build privacy-centric solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to improve privacy operations end-to-end, reducing DPIA and privacy-review cycle time, improving DSR SLA performance, increasing control coverage, through bottleneck analysis, automation tooling, and scalable governance mechanisms.
• Strong understanding of