Distinguished Engineer 7
Distinguished Engineer, Data Governance and Privacy
Distinguished Engineers at NetApp are individual contributors who strive to be diverse in technology and provide technical leadership, architectural guidance and lead innovations to senior architects and engineers. They possess the ability to influence, collaborate, set technical direction, develop product roadmaps, and provide innovative solutions to solve architectural and business problems. Distinguished engineers impact the overall growth of the company by devising clear roadmaps to deliver next generation technology solutions to NetApp customers. About team: ONTAP is NetApp’s flagship storage operating system. The ONTAP team drives the product strategy, roadmap, and engineering delivery for ONTAP software and systems. You are responsible for developing innovative solutions and architecture for ONTAP software and systems spanning the areas of filesystems and storage, security, networking and protocols. The solutions you architect and design will drive mission critical applications, AI infra
We are seeking a highly accomplished and visionary Distinguished Engineer, Data Governance and Privacy to join our innovative and rapidly growing team. In this pivotal role, you will be instrumental in shaping the strategic direction and technical implementation of our Data Governance and Privacy initiatives across our platform . To support workflows for data engineering, privacy and governance for AI. You will be a recognized expert with the experience of building large scale data intensive applications and platforms, driving architectural decisions, fostering best practices, and leading the charge in building a robust, scalable, and compliant data ecosystem.
Job Requirements
As a Distinguished Engineer, you will be a thought leader and hands-on contributor, responsible for:
- Strategic Vision & Leadership: Defining and championing the long-term technical roadmap for data governance and Privacy within our platform, aligning with evolving regulatory landscapes and industry best practices.
- Architectural Design & Guidance: Leading the design and implementation of highly scalable, secure, and resilient privacy-by-design and data governance architectures. Providing expert guidance to engineering teams on privacy-preserving techniques, data minimization, consent management, data retention, and access controls.
- Technical Excellence & Innovation: Driving the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and methodologies to enhance our data privacy and governance capabilities. Identifying and prototyping innovative solutions to complex data challenges.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnering closely with Legal, Product, Security, and other Engineering teams to translate regulatory requirements and business needs into actionable technical solutions.
- Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing: Mentoring senior engineers and fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning within the organization. Disseminating expertise through technical reviews, presentations, and documentation.
- Incident Response & Remediation: Providing expert technical leadership during privacy-related incidents and breaches, ensuring rapid containment, root cause analysis, and effective remediation.
- Vendor & Tooling Evaluation: Evaluating and recommending third-party tools, technologies, and services to bolster our privacy and data governance posture.
What you will bring
- 15+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, with a significant focus on data privacy, data governance, and security within large-scale SaaS environments.
- Demonstrated experience operating at a Distinguished Engineer, Principal Engineer, or equivalent level, showcasing technical leadership, strategic impact, and significant contributions to complex systems.
- Deep expertise in designing and implementing privacy-by-design principles into software architectures and development lifecycles.
- Extensive hands-on experience with various data governance frameworks, tools, and technologies, including data cataloging, lineage, quality, master data management, and access control solutions.
- Profound understanding of global privacy regulations such as GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, and their practical application in a SaaS context.
- Proven track record of building and scaling distributed systems with a strong emphasis on data security, encryption, anonymization, and pseudonymization techniques.
- Expertise in cloud-native architectures (AWS, Azure, GCP) and best practices for securing data in the cloud.
- Proficiency in multiple programming languages (e.g., Java, Python, Go, Scala) and a strong understanding of database technologies (relational and NoSQL).
- Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, from engineers to executives.
- Strong leadership, mentorship, and collaboration skills, with a passion for building high-performing teams.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
All internal movements within the Product Group via requisition will be lateral, offering valuable growth opportunities to extend your skills in a new area. Opportunities for a promotion will be reviewed in the normal course of business, aligned with our promotion process.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.
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Why NetApp?
Why You'll Thrive at NetApp
At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment—you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.
NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.
Our culture
We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed—they drive everything we do.
If you're ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one. Apply now.
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Learn moreNetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification. We pledge to take every reasonable step to ensure that our applicants and employees are respected, treated fairly, and with dignity. See the EEO poster. NetApp makes reasonable accommodations, consistent with applicable laws, for religious purposes and for the known physical or mental limitations of an otherwise qualified applicant or employee with a disability, who can perform the essential job functions unless undue hardship would result.
Reasonable accommodation
If you are an applicant with a physical or mental disability that requires reasonable accommodation for any part of our application process, please email accessibility@netapp.com. Each request for reasonable accommodation will be considered on a case-by-case basis, consistent with applicable laws and regulations. Please note, this email address is only for accommodation requests; we do not accept unsolicited resumes.
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We’re sorry, but we cannot accept unsolicited resumes that are sent to NetApp employees or contractors. We will not compensate for a referral without a current contract on file with our Talent Acquisition team. If you’re interested in helping us with a particular role, please call your partner in Talent Acquisition to discuss.