Privacy Counsel UK

Coursera was launched in 2012 by two Stanford Computer Science professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. It is now one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, with 142 million registered learners as of December 31, 2023.

Coursera partners with over 325 leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, Guided Projects, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Institutions around the world use Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, citizens, and students in fields such as data science, technology, and business. Coursera became a B Corp in February 2021.

Join us in our mission to create a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life through access to education. We're seeking talented individuals who share our passion and drive to revolutionize the way the world learns.

We at Coursera are committed to building a globally diverse team and are thrilled to extend employment opportunities to individuals in any country where we have a legal entity. We require candidates to possess eligible working rights and have a compatible timezone overlap with their team to facilitate seamless collaboration. As a remote-first company, our interviews and onboarding are entirely virtual, providing a smooth and efficient experience for our candidates.

Job Overview:

Legal and Compliance is responsible for managing all legal and regulatory matters, including contracts, corporate governance, general compliance, academic compliance, employment law matters, intellectual property, product counseling, government relations, and claims. The team includes dedicated teams that support every aspect of Coursera's platform, including university, enterprise and industry partnerships.

Privacy Counsel will work across the entire company, ensuring compliance with global privacy laws as one of our privacy subject matter experts within the Privacy Team. This will involve working closely with Product Counsel and our product and engineering teams to ensure privacy compliance is embedded into our platform and products (including through DPIAs and privacy assessments). A key component of this role will also be to work in close collaboration with the rest of the Privacy Team and cross-functional stakeholders  to develop our privacy compliance ecosystems and lead on key privacy issues such as incident response, data subject request management, and data protection inquiries from individuals and regulators.  Finally, Privacy Counsel will serve as an escalation point for customer and partner facing legal teams on privacy issues, including DPA negotiations. 

We’re looking for a team member who is passionate about business growth and education. We want a candidate who is energized by the challenges of growing a mission-driven business globally and being a strategic business partner for a dynamic team experiencing rapid expansion. This role will engage with all levels of employees and management, so interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal) are vital to strong working relationships. 

Responsibilities:

1. Delivering Legal Guidance: Providing legal guidance to ensure that practices accord with privacy laws and regulations in the business’s operating jurisdictions
2. Policies and Standards: Developing and updating privacy notice and internal privacy policies
3. Contracts: Ensuring company activities accord with applicable law in third-party relationships with privacy implications and support our contracts teams with involved privacy negotiations
4. Conducting Due Diligence: Partnering with the team and business on reviews to ensure that third-party and vendor practices accord with legal requirements
5. Other Duties: Assessing legal risk, performing privacy impact assessments; training employees on data privacy laws and practices, conducting legitimate interest assessments; assisting with incident reporting and investigation, collaborating with product counsel to ensure legal requirements and privacy controls are implemented in products

Basic Qualifications:

1. Qualified solicitor in England and Wales
2. 5+ years of relevant experience at a law firm or in-house legal department or both
3. In-depth knowledge of US and EU consumer privacy statutes (such as GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, CAN-SPAM)
4. Experience building rapport with stakeholders at all levels of seniority across the business and the ability to explain complex concepts

Preferred Qualifications:

1. 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 
2. Demonstrated experience counseling global, cross-functional teams regarding data privacy
3. Demonstrated experience 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 
4. Possess a practical approach to problem-solving and be able to counsel internal clients with clear, concise and creative advice on timelines to meet business needs 
5. Operate autonomously while being a team player who brings a positive, “can do” attitude to the workplace and works collaboratively with other members of the Legal and Compliance team and with internal clients
6. Thrives in an ever-changing, start-up environment, and works quickly under time-pressure deadlines

If this opportunity interests you, you might like these courses on Coursera:

• Promote the Ethical Use of Data-Driven Technologies
• Artificial Intelligence Privacy and Convenience

#LI-NL1