Privacy Operations Engineer

Job Description

• The Privacy Operations Engineer bridges privacy compliance and technical implementation, architecting, building, and maintaining the tooling, automation, and data infrastructure that powers the company's global privacy program across UK/EU, US, APAC, and other regions. This role works closely with engineering and product teams to operationalize privacy-by-design and privacy-by-default requirements, and owns the technical backbone connecting privacy management platforms (e.g., OneTrust), work-management systems (e.g., Azure DevOps, Jira), and the organization's broader data and cloud infrastructure. This is a hands-on engineering role requiring both strong technical depth and working knowledge of global privacy regulatory concepts.

Key Responsibilities

• Privacy Automation Engineering
  • Design, build, and maintain automation for privacy operations workflows, including data subject rights fulfillment, data discovery, data mapping, and privacy assessment triggering.
  • Build and maintain API and Power Automate integrations between privacy management platforms (e.g., OneTrust) and internal systems (ticketing/ADO/Jira, identity, data stores), including field mapping, assignment logic, bi-directional status sync, and error handling/logging so systems do not drift apart.
  • Implement risk-based conditional logic and trigger workflows for privacy assessments (PIAs/DPIAs/TIAs) tied to intake or procurement systems, including escalation paths for high-risk triggers and governance/audit trails over the trigger rules themselves.
  • Design and maintain automated redaction and exception-flagging pipelines (e.g., keyword/pattern matching, ML classifiers) for DSAR fulfillment, ensuring a mandatory human-review checkpoint before release and maintaining an audit log of redaction decisions.

Data Mapping & ROPA Infrastructure

• Build and maintain an automated, event-driven data flow inventory and data mapping pipeline, tied to system/vendor intake and procurement processes rather than periodic manual surveys.

• Build and maintain integrations with data discovery and classification tooling (e.g., OneTrust Data Discovery, BigID, Collibra, AWS Macie, Azure Purview, database crawlers) to automatically feed classifications and data flows into ROPA records.

• Implement drift-detection mechanisms that reconcile ROPA records against discovery/mapping tool outputs, and support metrics such as percentage of ROPA records reviewed within a defined window.

• Support technical aspects of privacy impact assessments, including data flow diagrams and system/architecture review.

Privacy-by-Design Engineering & Product Collaboration

• Partner with engineering and product teams to implement privacy-by-design and privacy-by-default controls within products and internal systems.

• Assist in the technical implementation of data retention and deletion requirements across structured and unstructured data sources.

• Advise engineering teams on technical architecture considerations for new products and features from a privacy and data protection perspective.

Program Tooling, Reporting & Observability

• Build and maintain KPI dashboards and reporting pipelines (e.g., ADO Analytics, Power BI) that translate raw work-item and automation data into executive-ready privacy program metrics (DSAR SLA compliance, assessment backlog, incident response times).

• Monitor and report on the health of privacy tooling and automated processes, troubleshooting integration or data-quality issues as they arise.

• Maintain governance over report definitions and automation/trigger rule changes so metrics and workflows remain consistent and trustworthy over time.

DSAR & Assessment Automation at Scale

• Design and maintain automated routing of DSAR tasks with data-owner mapping across multiple systems, SLA tracking tied to statutory deadlines, and tiered escalation as deadlines approach.

• Build scalable automation and surge-capacity mechanisms (triage automation, templated responses) to support DSAR volume spikes, incorporating lessons learned into ongoing process improvements.

• Support automation of assessment intake quality, including conditional required fields, real-time validation, and automated reminders to reduce incomplete submissions.

Required Qualifications

• 5-7+ years of experience in a data engineering, software engineering, or technical privacy/compliance engineering role, ideally supporting privacy or compliance operations at a global or multinational organization.

• Strong proficiency in at least one programming/scripting language (e.g., Python, SQL) and demonstrated experience building and maintaining API integrations and automated workflows (e.g., Power Automate, custom scripts, middleware).

• Hands-on experience building integrations between privacy management platforms (e.g., OneTrust, BigID, Collibra) and internal systems (ticketing/ADO/Jira, identity, data stores), including field mapping, assignment logic, and bi-directional status sync with error handling.

• Experience designing and maintaining automated data discovery and data mapping pipelines across structured and unstructured data sources (e.g., AWS Macie, Azure Purview, database crawlers) that feed ROPA records.

• Experience implementing risk-based conditional logic and trigger workflows for privacy assessments (PIA/DPIA/TIA) tied to intake or procurement systems.

• Experience building reporting/analytics pipelines (e.g., ADO Analytics, Power BI) that translate raw operational data into KPI dashboards for privacy program leadership.

• Solid understanding of core privacy concepts (data minimization, purpose limitation, data subject rights, retention) and global privacy regulations (UK GDPR/EU GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, PIPEDA, or similar) as applied to technical system design.

• Experience working with structured and unstructured data across multiple systems and cloud environments.

Core Competencies

• Strong systems-design thinking with the ability to balance automation against defensibility and risk.

• Ability to work independently and collaboratively across global engineering, legal, and privacy teams.

• Strong troubleshooting and debugging skills across integrated systems.

• Adaptability to evolving regulatory and technical requirements.

• Clear communication skills to translate technical architecture into terms non-technical privacy and legal stakeholders can act on.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with privacy management platforms (e.g., OneTrust, BigID, Collibra) and their APIs/connector frameworks.

• CIPT certification.

• Experience with cloud data infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP), including native discovery/classification services (e.g., Macie, Purview).

• Experience building automated redaction/exception-flagging pipelines with tuned accuracy and governed human-review checkpoints.

• Experience supporting DSAR automation at scale, including SLA tracking/escalation design and volume-spike scaling strategies.

• Experience designing event-driven data mapping architectures integrated with CMDB/asset inventory or cloud discovery tooling.

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What’s in it For You?

• Hybrid Work Model: We’ve adopted a flexible hybrid working environment for our office-based roles while delivering a seamless experience that is digitally and physically connected.
• Flexibility & Work-Life Balance: Flex My Way is a set of supportive workplace policies designed to help manage personal and professional responsibilities, whether caring for family, giving back to the community, or finding time to refresh and reset. This builds upon our flexible work arrangements, including work from anywhere for up to 8 weeks per year, empowering employees to achieve a better work-life balance.
• Career Development and Growth: By fostering a culture of continuous learning and skill development, we prepare our talent to tackle tomorrow’s challenges and deliver real-world solutions. Our Grow My Way programming and skills-first approach ensures you have the tools and knowledge to grow, lead, and thrive in an AI-enabled future.
• Industry Competitive Benefits: We offer comprehensive benefit plans to include flexible vacation, two company-wide Mental Health Days off, access to the Headspace app, retirement savings, tuition reimbursement, employee incentive programs, and resources for mental, physical, and financial wellbeing.
• Culture: Globally recognized, award-winning reputation for inclusion and belonging, flexibility, work-life balance, and more. We live by our values: Obsess over our Customers, Compete to Win, Challenge (Y)our Thinking, Act Fast / Learn Fast, and Stronger Together.
• Social Impact: Make an impact in your community with our Social Impact Institute. We offer employees two paid volunteer days off annually and opportunities to get involved with pro-bono consulting projects and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives.
• Making a Real-World Impact: We are one of the few companies globally that helps its customers pursue justice, truth, and transparency. Together, with the professionals and institutions we serve, we help uphold the rule of law, turn the wheels of commerce, catch bad actors, report the facts, and provide trusted, unbiased information to people all over the world.

Our use of AI within the recruitment process Thomson Reuters utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support parts of our global recruitment process. Unless you opt-out, our AI system will assess the information provided by you and compare it to the requirements listed for the role, and present the result to our recruitment personnel for further review. The AI system acts as a supporting tool, but there is always a human making the decision if you will be considered for the role

About Us

Thomson Reuters informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. We serve professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Our products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news.

We are powered by the talents of 26,000 employees across more than 70 countries, where everyone has a chance to contribute and grow professionally in flexible work environments. At a time when objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and transparency are under attack, we consider it our duty to pursue them. Sound exciting? Join us and help shape the industries that move society forward.

As a global business, we rely on the unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of all employees to deliver on our business goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer providing a drug-free workplace.

We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law. More information on requesting an accommodation here.

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