What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Privacy Counsel position at Coursera?
About Coursera
Coursera and Udemy are now one company, creating one of the world's most comprehensive skills development platforms for the AI era. This strengthens our ability to accelerate AI-powered innovation and shape how the world discovers and builds skills at a pivotal moment of change. Read more about the combined company by visiting our blog.
Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. Coursera partners with leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera's platform innovations - including AI-powered personalized guide and features, like Role Play and Course Builder, and role-based solutions like Skills Tracks - enable instructors, partners, and companies to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, students, and citizens in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business, while learners globally turn to Coursera to master the skills they need to advance their careers. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp. Coursera recently combined with Udemy to create one of the world's most comprehensive skills development platforms.
Why Join Us
At Coursera, we're looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners ready to shape the future of education. You'll help build global programs and tools that power online learning for millions turning bold ideas into real impact. People who thrive here are customer-first builders who move fast, simplify ruthlessly, and iterate relentlessly on the metrics that matter.
We're a globally distributed team that comes together intentionally for collaboration, complex problem-solving, and key milestones - creating opportunities for teams to do their best work together. Our virtual hiring and onboarding experience makes it easy to join us and start making an impact from anywhere. If you're ready to make a global impact, help scale unique products across Coursera Udemy, and grow your career, apply below.
Job Overview:
Legal and Compliance manages all legal and regulatory matters, including privacy, contracts, corporate governance, compliance, employment law, intellectual property, government relations, and claims, while supporting Coursera's and Udemy's platforms and partnerships. Coursera is seeking a Senior Privacy Counsel to serve as a privacy subject matter expert (with an initial primary focus on Udemy) helping support compliance with global privacy laws. The role partners closely with Privacy, Product, Engineering, and Information Security teams to strengthen the combined company's privacy program and embed privacy into products and services. Key responsibilities include advising on privacy impact assessments, incident response, data subject requests, regulatory engagement, product counseling, and AI-related privacy issues. The ideal candidate is passionate about education and business growth, thrives in a fast-paced global environment, and has strong communication and relationship-building skills.
Responsibilities:
- Global subject matter expert: Serve as the primary legal advisor on US privacy laws, including federal and state frameworks (such as CCPA/CPRA), while providing guidance on applicable global privacy and privacy-adjacent laws, including the EU and UK GDPR and key APAC and Latin American frameworks. Advise the business on legal and regulatory developments and their practical impact.
- Privacy Program: Help to continuously develop, implement, and scale Coursera and Udemy's global privacy program, including by developing and maintaining standardized privacy notices, internal policies, tools, processes, playbooks, and training.
- Delivering Legal Guidance: Support and advise key stakeholders on a broad range of complex privacy, AI, and cyber issues and provide pragmatic and risk-based solutions in accordance with global privacy laws.
- Incident reporting: Investigate and manage security incidents that impact personal information, together with Engineering, InfoSec and other stakeholders.
- Regulatory responses: Respond to requests and inquiries from individuals and privacy regulators.
- Strategic leadership: Act as a trusted advisor to senior leadership on privacy risk and strategy, and mentor and support other members of the Privacy and broader Legal and Compliance teams.
Qualifications:
- Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school and active membership in at least one US state bar, with 8 years of legal experience, including at least five years experience advising on privacy and matters in a law firm, an in-house legal department, or both.
- Demonstrated experience advising on US privacy and privacy adjacent laws, including CCPA/CPRA and other US state privacy laws, with working knowledge of GDPR and other global privacy frameworks.
- Demonstrated experience with implementing/maintaining foundational aspects of a global privacy compliance program, including experience working with privacy compliance tools and developing processes to enforce internal privacy protocols.
- Demonstrated history of working autonomously and at pace, exercising sound judgment to resolve complex and ambiguous privacy issues and deliver practical, business-focused outcomes, including by explaining complex concepts clearly to stakeholders at all levels.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills and attention to detail, with the ability to counsel internal clients practically with clear, concise, and creative advice.
Nice to haves:
- Prior in-house experience at a technology company with a product serving users across at least two of the following verticals across multiple international jurisdictions: consumer, enterprise, and education.
- Demonstrated experience counseling global, cross-functional teams regarding privacy and AI, including in APAC and EMEA.
- Privacy certifications such as CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPM, or AIGP are a plus.
- Experience of using and implementing privacy compliance software.
US Zone 4: $144,400 - $180,500
At Coursera, we offer competitive, zone-based pay aligned to your location, experience, and role level across four U.S. pay zones. Our total rewards package goes beyond salary, with comprehensive health and wellness benefits, bonus and RSU equity programs, and global perks designed to help you grow and thrive wherever you are.
- US-Z1: Bay Area
- US-Z2: NYC and Seattle Metro
- US-Z3: CA, WA, NY, NJ, CO, CT, DC, GA, IL, MA, MD, OR, RI, TX, VA
- US-Z4: AK, AZ, DE, FL, HI, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NV, NH, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, UT, VT, WI
For more information about how Coursera collects and uses your personal information, please see our Global Applicant Privacy Notice.
To protect against recruitment fraud, Coursera Udemy recruiters only communicate via official coursera.org/udemy.com email addresses and never through personal accounts. We do not accept resumes via email or social media; please submit all applications directly through our careers page.
If you encounter suspicious recruitment activity, please report it via ourFraudulent Activity Submission Form.
Coursera is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to building a welcoming and inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request at recruiting@coursera.org.
Coursera is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected class.
If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at accommodations@coursera.org.
Salary : $144,400 - $180,500