The need for privacy engineers is increasing, especially within the past five years. Did you know that according to ZipRecuiter.com, a privacy engineer in the United States earns an average salary of $137,151 a year? That breaks down to a whopping $66 an hour! And, an experienced privacy engineer can potentially earn up to over $258,000 a year.
The Growing Data Privacy Space
The scope of the internet is always changing and having people in charge to monitor and keep everyone safe is of the utmost importance for companies dealing with large amounts of sensitive customer information.
In a 2021 interview with Het Ventures, Uber’s Global Head of Privacy Engineering Nishant Bhajaria says, “I would say there is enough room for everybody. So the challenge is not about one person wins and everybody else loses. My concern is the exact opposite. There is so much demand in this space…there will be a ton of need for these tools…my sense is the market is really big. If you were to compare it to a 24-hour day, we are looking at 8:30 in the morning right now. There is a lot of sunshine still to come.”
What is Data Privacy?
Data privacy is the aspect of controlling the information that is shared from customers with a third party. It is the legal regulations and the policies businesses put in place to ensure that customers feel safe and protected by who they chose to do business with. It is also abiding by the laws put in place by the government to make sure that everyone is being treated justly. Data is extremely valuable, and it is up to privacy engineers to make sure it is properly guarded and kept safe from people with malicious intent.
As a privacy engineer, you want to take into account how you are dealing with people’s data on a personal level. How would you want your own data handled? How about the data of your grandparents or your children? You wouldn’t want someone passing around your personal information with malicious intentions. Enter: the privacy engineer. The superhero we all need and deserve. A privacy engineer will deal with both legalities and ethics.
The Growing Importance of Privacy Engineering
The work of privacy engineers is needed now more than ever and is extremely vital to companies who wish to protect their customer base from malicious attacks and also protect their reputation and future business sales. Privacy engineering includes knowing how to build the tools needed to protect and process data safely. IT means inspecting codes, analyzing how to best anonymize the information, and creating privacy controls.
Google privacy engineer Erin Relford defines privacy as “the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.” Relford also reports that “privacy runs the gamut in terms of industry, and so as a privacy engineer you could work primarily in any industry with this role since everyone needs it.
Learn More About Privacy Engineering
With the law catching up to privacy, a lot of companies are starting to pay more attention in terms of ‘what do we need in our house to build privacy by design and make sure that we’re covered before we even pass laws.” The exciting and rapidly growing industry of privacy is just getting started, so if you want to get in on the ground floor, the time to take action is now.
Check out Udacity’s Privacy Engineering Nanodegree to learn how to implement the best practices in protecting privacy when designing products.
