Senior Privacy Specialist - Full-time

Working at Abbott

At Abbott, you can do work that matters, grow, and learn, care for yourself and family, be your true self and live a full life. You’ll also have access to:

• Career development with an international company where you can grow the career you dream of.

• Free medical coverage for employees* via the Health Investment Plan (HIP) PPO

• An excellent retirement savings plan with high employer contribution

• Tuition reimbursement, the student debt program and education benefit - an affordable and convenient path to getting a bachelor’s degree.

• A company recognized as a great place to work in dozens of countries around the world and named one of the most admired companies in the world by Fortune.

• A company that is recognized as one of the best big companies to work for as well as the best place to work for diverse, working mothers, female executives, and scientists.

THE OPPORTUNITY

This Senior Privacy Specialist position can work out in one of the following locations: Alameda (CA), Bend (OR), Chicago (IL), or Orlando (FL).

The Senior Privacy Specialist is responsible for supporting the review and design of privacy and compliance controls, mechanisms and protocols across the organization and product line, and will support an important global digital transformation initiative. This team member will work cross-functionally with the Privacy, Legal, Compliance, Engineering, and Product Teams. The ideal candidate will have a clear ability to coordinate with application and system owners to help them understand and implement privacy by design and compliance obligations and solutions for the full lifecycle of applications and systems, from proof of concept, business analysis and financial modeling, architecture design, user acceptance testing to solution deployment. This person will assist their leadership with ensuring engineering and data privacy solutions and technologies are properly supported, implemented, and sufficiently meets the needs for which they are deployed to protect confidential and proprietary data. This individual will assist in the planning, design, implementation and ongoing support of engineering privacy control systems, compliance and processes to fulfill commercial needs.

WHAT YOU’LL WORK ON 

• Develop and implement standards, processes and technical solutions to ensure privacy policies are correctly implemented. The implementations should advance compliance with legal and business forms of data processing.

• Work to align advanced technologies and Privacy by Design principles from the first stages of development and collaborate with legal and privacy colleagues to ensure that the data processing meets established regulatory compliance needs. 

• Collaborate with product and system development teams creating new data processing that employ privacy features.

• Analyze and provide design requirements for processing for personal information with a goal of implementing technical solutions to help mitigate privacy vulnerabilities and prevent potential future privacy risks.

• Interact with users to define system requirements and/or necessary modifications to new or existing software. 

• Guide the development of new privacy products and features, as well as the review of in place products and technology to ensure persistence of privacy controls.

• Identify areas of improvement in local practices relative to managing data privacy.

• Assist with regular privacy assessments of operational processes, identifying, and mitigating risks through effective tools, training, and guidance.

• Assist with tracking categories of privacy threats and vulnerabilities to proactively address potential future variances.

• Communicate program progress, escalations, and issue analysis to key stakeholders.

• Increase privacy maturity in the technical and compliance teams by providing privacy education, training, and mentoring.

• Closely interact with local teams in case of regulator inquiries or addressing data subject rights and drive for delivering system related / technical information and analysis needed to work up the cases and draft responses.

• Advise on technical features of systems and applications for Data Protection Impact Assessments.

• Identify and recommend technical solutions to manage privacy risks.

• Collaborate with privacy, legal, IT, and business colleagues to ensure compliance with applicable privacy laws and requirements.

• Conduct technical and quantitative analysis to drive scalable, efficient, and data-driven privacy decision-making.

• Design, architect, and lead implementation of privacy-enhancing solutions alongside Engineering teams including privacy design and strategy across ADC.

• Conduct privacy impact assessments of multiple product components, and determine how to bridge between data regulations, governance, practical engineering practices, and policy practices.

• Develop, maintain, and publish design or technical documentation to drive consistency in privacy decisions and practices.

• Drive and develop executive-level briefings on progress across major privacy control development frameworks.

• Ability to manage risk in ambiguous and complex situations.

CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS:

• Assist with compliance audits, oversee the fulfillment of auditors' requests, act as a liaison between business and auditors during on-site activities, evaluate and respond to preliminary findings and recommendations, guide the business in preparing corrective action to address moderately complex findings and recommendations, and ensure timely completion.

• Participate in Compliance Review Committee meetings and provide input on the violation process. Assist with tracking and trending and propose recommendations for corrective actions.

• Provide guidance on proposed commercial programs, identify moderately complex legal and regulatory issues, analyze alternatives, and work with legal, as appropriate, to propose solutions to the business.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Privacy Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical field

• 5 + years of experience with privacy in an engineering and or technical implementation context.

• 7+ years of progressive privacy program management, compliance, and or program management experience (healthcare or tech preferred).

• Fluency and proficiency in privacy-preserving methods and technology

• Strong verbal and presentation skills to facilitate communicating complex topics with diverse stakeholders during trainings or meetings.

• Be detail-oriented, highly organized, and independent; capable of managing a wide range of diverse projects with minimal supervision.

• Experience implementing and managing applicable regulatory frameworks (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, CPRA, and other U.S. state laws).

PREFERRED:

• Experience driving changes across multiple business units with competing priorities.

• Experience supporting product launches or familiarity with product launch lifecycle.

• Experience scaling out privacy controls and capabilities

• Experience in program management, consulting, or internal regulatory compliance.

• Experience and understanding of compliance practices related to data security and privacy, including common risks and controls.

• Professional certification in privacy (e.g., CIPP, CIPM, CIPT, CDPSE)

• OneTrust expertise.

• Familiarity with information governance standards, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Privacy and Cybersecurity Frameworks.

• Experience with privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs).

• Ability to identify stakeholders and points of view, bringing people together to agree on and execute a strategy.

• Prior exposure to regulated healthcare and life sciences companies.

* Participants who complete a short wellness assessment qualify for FREE coverage in our HIP PPO medical plan. Free coverage applies in the next calendar year.

Learn more about our health and wellness benefits, which provide the security to help you and your family live full lives: 

Follow your career aspirations to Abbott for diverse opportunities with a company that can help you build your future and live your best life. Abbott is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to employee diversity.

Connect with us at , on Facebook at and on Twitter @AbbottNews and @AbbottGlobal.