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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Security and Privacy Specialist

💰 $ - $

SecurityPrivacyComplianceRisk ManagementIT

🎯 Role Definition

The Security and Privacy Specialist is an operational and programmatic role responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining security controls and privacy processes that protect organizational data, ensure regulatory compliance (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA where applicable), and enable secure business operations across cloud and on-prem environments. This role partners with engineering, legal, product, HR and vendor teams to drive privacy-by-design, manage incidents, conduct assessments, and operationalize risk-based security practices.

Key search terms: Security and Privacy Specialist, data protection, GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, incident response, DPIA, cloud security, DLP, SIEM, IAM, vendor risk.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Security Analyst (Information Security Analyst)
  • Privacy Analyst / Data Privacy Coordinator
  • IT Risk & Compliance Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Security and Privacy Specialist
  • Privacy Manager / Data Protection Officer (DPO)
  • Information Security Manager / Head of Information Security
  • Compliance Lead / Director of Security & Privacy

Lateral Moves:

  • Security Engineer (Cloud or Application Security)
  • Third-Party Risk Manager / Vendor Risk Analyst
  • IT Audit or Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop, maintain, and evolve the organization's privacy program and security control framework to meet regulatory requirements (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA as applicable), industry standards (ISO 27001, SOC 2) and internal risk appetite; produce roadmaps, policies, standards and control matrices.
  • Lead and coordinate privacy impact assessments (PIAs/DPIAs) and privacy risk assessments for new products, features, or data flows; provide remediation guidance and sign-off criteria for engineering and product teams.
  • Own the operational incident response lifecycle for data breaches and security incidents affecting personal data or critical systems: detection, triage, containment, investigation, notification, remediation and post-incident reviews; collaborate with Legal and Communications for regulatory notifications.
  • Manage data subject rights lifecycle: intake, verification, fulfillment and reporting for requests such as access, rectification, portability, erasure, and objection; ensure SLAs and auditability.
  • Configure, tune and maintain data loss prevention (DLP) controls, encryption standards (at-rest and in-transit), and key management practices across cloud and on-prem infrastructure.
  • Conduct regular security assessments: vulnerability scanning, static/dynamic application security testing (SAST/DAST), configuration reviews, and coordinate external penetration tests; drive remediation and track closure of findings with engineering teams.
  • Implement and maintain identity and access management (IAM) best practices including least privilege, role-based access control (RBAC), privileged access management (PAM), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and SSO integrations (SAML/OAuth/OIDC).
  • Maintain and operate security monitoring and logging solutions (SIEM), build detection rules and playbooks, and analyze alerts to identify anomalies, exfiltration attempts, or policy violations.
  • Lead vendor and third-party privacy and security risk assessments: due diligence questionnaires, contractual security and privacy clauses, SOC reports review, and periodic reassessments; manage remediation and escalation with procurement.
  • Provide privacy and security guidance during product design and development to embed privacy-by-design and secure development lifecycle (SDLC) practices, including threat modeling and secure coding reviews.
  • Create, update and deliver security and privacy policies, standards, playbooks and training materials; run awareness campaigns for employees, contractors and executives to reduce human risk and support compliance.
  • Support SOC 2 and ISO 27001 audit readiness: prepare evidence, track remediation, run internal controls testing, and liaise with auditors during external assessments.
  • Maintain a comprehensive data inventory and data flow maps for personal and sensitive information across systems and environments; recommend retention and minimization strategies.
  • Perform risk assessments (qualitative and quantitative), develop risk treatment plans, and regularly report risk posture and KPIs to leadership and stakeholders.
  • Advise legal and product teams on cross-border data transfer mechanisms, adequacy, SCCs, and operational controls required to meet international privacy obligations.
  • Develop and maintain incident playbooks and run tabletop exercises with cross-functional stakeholders to validate readiness and continuously improve response capabilities.
  • Drive secure configuration standards and hardening guides for cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) services, containers, CI/CD pipelines and endpoint management; partner with DevOps to enforce automated guardrails.
  • Monitor evolving privacy and security regulation and threat landscape; translate changes into actionable program updates, employee guidance and product-level controls.
  • Provide day-to-day support and executive briefings for complex privacy/security questions, escalations and decisions; act as the operational subject matter expert for internal teams.
  • Create and maintain metrics and dashboards (mean time to detection, time to remediate, DPIA turnaround, DSAR SLA compliance, third-party risk scores) to measure program effectiveness and inform leadership decisions.
  • Coordinate cross-functional remediation programs for systemic issues, tracking dependencies, timelines and effectiveness of corrective actions until closure.
  • Manage encryption key lifecycle and cryptographic policy compliance and coordinate with infrastructure teams on key rotation, escrow, and recovery processes.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc privacy and security requests from product and business teams including risk consultations, technical guidance, and control implementation checklists.
  • Maintain and refine asset and data classification schemes to ensure consistent handling and protection of sensitive information across the enterprise.
  • Assist in building reusable control templates and automation (IaC checks, CI pipeline gates, automated evidence collection) to reduce audit and compliance burden.
  • Participate in sprint planning, design reviews and agile ceremonies to represent privacy/security requirements and acceptance criteria.
  • Contribute to vendor onboarding by validating security questionnaires, ensuring contractual privacy protections, and feeding remediation tasks into procurement processes.
  • Support internal audits and cross-functional assessments by preparing documentation, evidence, and status updates for control owners.
  • Mentor junior security/privacy staff and contribute to hiring, onboarding, and training programs to scale capability across the organization.
  • Provide input to business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) planning from a security and privacy perspective, ensuring continuity of critical data protection controls.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expertise in privacy laws and frameworks: GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, HIPAA (where applicable), and knowledge of international transfer mechanisms (SCCs, adequacy).
  • Strong familiarity with security frameworks and standards: ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST CSF/SP 800-53, PCI-DSS (as applicable).
  • Hands-on experience with cloud security controls across AWS, Azure and/or GCP: IAM, KMS, VPC, security groups, secrets management, and cloud-native monitoring.
  • Proficiency with security monitoring and response tools: SIEM (Splunk, Elastic, Sumo Logic), EDR/XDR solutions (CrowdStrike, Carbon Black), and log analysis.
  • Practical experience with DLP tools and strategies (Symantec DLP, Microsoft Purview, Forcepoint) and content discovery/classification tools.
  • Knowledge of application security processes and tools: SAST, DAST, dependency scanning (Snyk, SonarQube), and secure SDLC integration.
  • Vulnerability management experience: Nessus, Qualys, Rapid7, and coordinating remediation with engineering teams.
  • Identity & Access Management technical skills: SSO, SAML, OAuth2/OIDC, RBAC design and PAM solutions.
  • Technical capability in encryption, PKI, TLS configuration, key management, and cryptographic best practices.
  • Experience performing DPIAs/PIAs, conducting privacy risk assessments, and maintaining data inventories and data flow mapping tools.
  • Familiarity with vendor risk management platforms and processes, and the ability to assess SOC reports and third-party security posture.
  • Scripting and automation skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell) to support tooling, evidence collection, and operational automation.
  • Experience preparing compliance evidence for audits, SOC 2 readiness, ISO 27001 certification and working with external auditors.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent written and verbal communication tailored to both technical and non-technical audiences; ability to draft policies, notices and executive summaries.
  • Strong stakeholder management: ability to influence engineering, product, legal and business leaders without direct authority.
  • Analytical and investigative mindset for incident response, root cause analysis and risk prioritization.
  • Project management skills: plan, prioritize, and deliver cross-functional initiatives on schedule.
  • High attention to detail and commitment to documentation, evidence and repeatable processes.
  • Diplomacy and conflict resolution when balancing security/privacy requirements with business priorities.
  • Continuous learning orientation to stay current with emerging threats, regulatory changes and tooling.
  • Training and coaching capability to raise organizational security and privacy maturity.
  • Risk-based decision making and pragmatic problem solving focused on minimizing business impact.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, Law, Data Privacy, or a related technical or legal discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree (e.g., MS Cybersecurity, MS Information Security, LLM) or advanced privacy/legal qualifications (JD with privacy focus).
  • Formal privacy or security education programs (bootcamps, intensive courses).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Information Security / Cybersecurity
  • Computer Science / Software Engineering
  • Law / Data Protection / Privacy Law
  • Information Systems / IT Risk & Compliance

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years of hands-on experience in information security, privacy, or compliance roles; 3+ years recommended for mid-level specialist roles.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of combined security and privacy experience, including operational incident management and program implementation.
  • Demonstrated track record of supporting SOC 2 or ISO 27001 audits, conducting DPIAs, and delivering cloud security controls.
  • Experience working with cross-functional engineering and product teams in agile environments.

Preferred certifications (indicative, not mandatory): CIPP/E or CIPP/US (IAPP), CISSP, CISM, CEH, ISO 27001 Lead Implementer/Auditor, GIAC certifications (GCIH, GSLC), or vendor/cloud certifications (AWS Certified Security Specialty, Azure Security Engineer).

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