Head of Privacy

Overview

GitHub is looking for a highly skilled and experienced privacy and data protection professional to join its growing Corporate, External, and Legal Affairs (CELA) team. GitHub is looking for a privacy leader with the energy and passion to lead our Privacy team in implementing our privacy and data protection program in a manner that always puts our developer customers first, safeguards trust in our platform, and leads our industry on privacy.

The Head of Privacy is responsible for designing, operationalizing, and overseeing GitHub’s Privacy Program. The Head of Privacy is also responsible for managing, growing, and developing our team of privacy professionals (legal and non-legal personnel), who are responsible for influencing the privacy awareness and privacy-impacting behaviors of all 3000 Hubbers

Our company

GitHub is the world’s largest platform for software developers and software development. Over 80 million people use GitHub to build amazing things together, and trust GitHub to host their software code, their personal information, and their collaboration with others. GitHub makes it easier for developers to work together, solve challenging problems, and create new technologies to advance human progress.

GitHub also continues to grow its product innovation, user base, and global presence. GitHub is the home for open-source software developers and is becoming more social to help developers easily communicate, collaborate, and connect with each other. With software development becoming a vital function at every organization on the planet, larger enterprise customers and the public sector are also increasingly turning to GitHub to participate in developer innovation on the platform and digitally transform their own internal software development.

GitHub’s impact and customers are global, and its vision is to be the home for all developers. Earning and maintaining developer trust is critical to this vision and our business, and this includes elevating developer privacy in our company’s policies, practices, and products.

Our team

GitHub CELA is an innovative team of professionals, located across the U.S. and around the world, who collaborate closely together and with the business. The CELA team operates on the cutting edge of legal practice, developer policy, and social impact. Like the rest of the software world, we use GitHub itself to work more collaboratively, transparently, and efficiently. We believe strongly in working from first principles, practicing kindness and helping make each other and the team better, and being careful stewards of the unique GitHub culture we are developing together. We value diversity of thought and experience, excellence and rigor in our work, a commitment to growth mindset and continuous improvement, developing a deep understanding of our products and services, intellectual curiosity, and innovation in our practice. We require strong bias for driving results, and a commitment to putting developers first and building customer trust in our platform.

Responsibilities

You will bring your experiences of leading legal and operational teams that work together to build and implement a strategic and comprehensive privacy program. You will guide your team to create and implement privacy policies and processes, and advise senior leaders in our business and software engineering teams on the full spectrum of privacy and data protection issues facing software platforms and social media companies like GitHub.  Our ideal candidate has deep knowledge of current privacy and data protection issues that our users – whether individual developers, enterprise customers, or government organizations – are likely focused on when considering or using our offerings. You will apply this experience and customer-centric thinking to setting privacy strategy for GitHub, getting ahead of new developments in global privacy and data protection law, and continuing to build out a privacy compliance program for GitHub offerings, newly acquired companies, and our internal systems. Finally, and importantly, you should also have a passion for people management and fostering professional growth for your reports.

Your primary responsibilities will be to:

• Serve as GitHub’s leader for privacy compliance, managing a team that ensures that GitHub’s privacy policies, requirements, and processes meet or exceed industry standards.
• Stand up and lead the Privacy team in the legal and operational aspects of GitHub’s privacy program, working with organization senior management in the business, engineering, and security teams to establish governance for the privacy program, and with embedded privacy program managers and privacy engineers in these teams to review privacy implications of strategic initiatives and drive desired privacy outcomes throughout the GitHub organization.
• Develop scalable resources to help GitHub’s legal teams and Privacy Program Managers to oversee privacy reviews of product launches and business practices, and focus on opportunities to improve GitHub’s policies and procedures.
• Oversee development and delivery of ongoing privacy training to GitHub employees.
• Manage GitHub’s privacy and data protection compliance to ensure GitHub stays compliant with emerging policies, regulations, and industry practices.
• Deliver strategic privacy legal advice and insights to the GitHub executive team
• Work closely with others on the CELA team on privacy and security incidents, government engagements, law enforcement demands, and internal investigations
• Provide privacy legal expertise to (a) the Product Legal team on product offerings, (b) the Commercial Legal team on customer engagements, and (c) the Policy team on privacy-related public policy for developers and software development
• Stay on top of applicable global privacy laws, regulatory developments, and accreditation standards and translate them into clear, concise, and actionable guidance for business and engineering teams.
• Engage with the privacy legal community, including coordinating with our privacy colleagues at Microsoft and LinkedIn, to understand evolving issues and to help GitHub provide an industry leading privacy program for developers and our customers.
• Lead and cultivate professional growth of a small but growing team of privacy professionals, including fostering an environment where members of your team are empowered to do the best work of their lives.

Minimum Qualifications

• At least 10 years’ experience focusing on global privacy/data protection law
• At least five years experience in developing and managing both legal and operational aspects of privacy compliance programs for technology companies
• A wonkish interest in global privacy and data protection law, as well as technology law and policy more broadly
• A passion for people management, strong management skills, and a commitment to fostering diversity, inclusion, and a strong sense of belonging across the CELA team
• A commitment to provide high quality client service and a strong desire to build trusted advisor relationships with key clients and executives
• A joy and passion for drafting policies, advice, and recommendations that are clear, concise, and human readable, including the ability to simplify complex legal and technical scenarios
• High standards of integrity, a commitment to personal excellence, strong judgment, and intellectual curiosity that takes your understanding, work product and client relationships to the next level
• Demonstrated growth mindset and the ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced, and remote-first workplace
• Legal authorization to work in the United States

Preferred qualifications

• JD or equivalent, with five + years providing privacy counseling
• A license to practice law in the United States
• IAPP certification (CIPP-EU, CIPP-US, CIPM, CIPT, or similar)
• Strong understanding of software technology and cloud services, associated business models, and technology industry trends
• Software engineering skills aren’t required, but a basic understanding of software coding is a definite plus. GitHub CELA has technical acumen, deep understanding of the GitHub product, platform, and ecosystem, and is able to quickly learn new business and technology concepts

(Colorado only*) Minimum salary of $122,500 to maximum $260,000 + bonus + equity + benefits.
· Note: Disclosure as required by sb19-085 (8-5-20) of the minimum salary compensation for this role when being hired in Colorado.